Katie's Articles

• Pet Overpopulation
• Animal Cruelty
• Habitat Destruction & Pollution
• Pets Shops vs Pounds
• Declawing

Declawing

“OUCH!  Jeez Molly!  That hurt,” said the little girl.  The scratches on her daughter’s arms, the ripped furniture, and the scratched up floors were what made Alice Jenkins decide to declaw her cat.  Her cat’s scratching habits were ruining her house and hurting her daughter.  She made a decision quickly to have this procedure done to her cat without even thinking about other options.  The vet told her quickly about what would be done.  He simply stated that the cat’s claws would be removed.  She considered this a minor procedure, and scheduled to have it done.  After the surgery, her cat came out in a daze.  She couldn’t walk, dig holes in her litter box, or climb for weeks.  Alice had to deal with complications and infections with Molly’s now stubbed claws for months.  She began to see that her decision might not have been the best route to go.

Declawing your cat is not just removing the entire claw, but the entire last joint of each of the ten toes.  It is such a painful and risky process that if a mistake occurs, complications include:  excruciating pain, damage to the radial nerve, hemorrhage, bone chips that prevent healing, painful regrowth of deformed claw inside of the paw which is not visible to the eye, and chronic back and joint pain as shoulder, leg and back muscles weaken.  Taking away your cats claws is like taking away the last joint of your own finger!  I know, not the prettiest thing to picture.             

Declawing is not only painful to your cat, but it can also affect them physiologically.  The surgery takes away their basic mean of defense, so they can become nervous, fearful, aggressive, and often have to resort to their teeth.  They become traumatized, and stay away from any form of pain.  Cats could decide not to use the litter box anymore, because it hurts to paw at it.  They could stay perched atop of refrigerators and become anti-social because humans could touch their paws and cause pain.  Stress hits hard on these cats, and changes their entire personality.             

One of the other things that could happen to a cat if he/she gets declawed, is he/she could be put in a shelter or killed because their owner didn’t want to deal with their problems anymore.  They could become an entirely different cat, from friendly to aggressive; or from being sweet to being depressed.  Many owners don’t want to deal with all of the complications, or ‘have time to’ so they give them off to shelters.  The reports that are written about these cats usually states that they have problems with aggression and biting, so no one wants to take them home.  This leads ultimately to euthanasia, which is entirely too sad.  The humans take away their means of defense, ten parts of their body, then don’t understand why they’ve changed, and give them away.   

I’m not trying to say every cat that has had their claws removed receives a chain of reactions like this, but “Two recent studies published in peer-reviewed veterinary journals (Vet Surg 1994 Jul-Aug;23(4):274-80) concluded “Fifty percent of the cats had one or more complications immediately after surgery.... 19.8% developed complications after release.”  It is likely there will be problems after the surgery; it is likely the cat will change.

How can we help?  Or rather, how can you help your pet?  Forget about declawing him/her!  There are other options!  One of the things I’ve found while looking at articles for this topic is something called ‘Soft Claws’.  You glue them onto your cat’s nails, and they give the cat all of the freedoms and uses of the claws.  What’s the benefit for my house and my family?  The soft claws basically don’t allow the cat’s claws to be sharp.  No more ruined furniture and scratched up family members!  Yay!  If you want to find out more ways to prevent your cat from being declawed, go to http://www.catscratching.com/.  They provide information about why cats scratch and what do about it.  So go, tell your parents there are other ways to stop the destruction.  Don’t declaw!