A place for the instinct
The scratching has to go somewhere - better here than your sofa.
You've watched it happen: the slow stretch, the hooked claws, the corner of the couch you'd only just replaced. Scratching isn't something to train out of them - it's how they stretch, mark, and settle. The panel simply gives that instinct a home of its own, fixed over the spots they already return to so the urge is met and the furniture is spared. They get the satisfying drag of claw on surface; you keep the room the way you meant it. Both of you, quietly, get what you were after.