From the beginning, both of my cats were interested in this, and both use it regularly for scratching. The top has "shed" a few pieces but nothing like I have had with other scratchers. One cat likes to lounge on it, and sometimes both cats will play around and through it as well. We are so happy we have this for our cats. I would love to see a way to replace the scratch surface somehow when they have scratched it all off, but that is a long way away.