Water never worked with out cat, she got revenge later and smacked her us on the head when going up the stairs. It infuriated her and made her more naughty so later she'd claw the leather sofa and run up the curtains.

What does work is the hairdryer. Now even when in conversation with each other she will run off or her ears prick up on hearing the work hairdryer.

Again, that's just teaching her you + hair dryer = bad, not that a specific act is what's resulting in the 'punishment' as the bad doesn't happen when you are not there. Turning a hair dryer on a cat is quite honstley an appalling thing to do.

Scratching is a natural behaviour, wild cats do it, big cats do it, you can't train it out of a cat, you can't punish it out of them either, they are motivated to mark their territory (obviously some more than others, but the motivation is there), all you can do is redirect it to an acceptable area, be that a post, outside etc.

i'm beginning to think you're right. used the squirty bottle on our little Leo last night for the first time and he looked so scared I felt terrible. he leapt onto "his" chair in the ohter room and hardly moved all night. Even this morning he looked very wary, bless him.

Its not my opinion (well it is, but I've not just pulled it out of thin air) its the opinion of feline behaviourists, much more qualified than myself. any behaviourist worth thier salt will tell you negative reinforement has many negative side effects that won't do you any favours in the long run. They work to a certain degree, but thats because they are negative - imagine getting squirted with water everytime you walked past a shop, you'd start avoiding it wouldn't you - or if you had no choice but to walk past it, you'd make sure you only walked past when the water squirter wasn't there. you'd most certainly not shop there, nor would you make friends with the idiot that was shooting water at you. So why would your cat be an different?