Originally Posted By t1lersm0m I had once heard that having a cat's claws removed is just as painful as if you cut your own fingers off at the knuckle. We picked up an abandoned cat near our old house. A neighbor convinced us to take him home. He is adorable. He scratched me last night. So I asked my friend if her cat is declawed. I have ABSOLUTELY NO intention of having mine declawed, and I was shocked when she said her cat was. Can anyone shed some light on the subject? I'm sure I can google it, but I love to hear feedback from LPers.
Originally Posted By sherrytodd As I've never been able to speak cat I don't know what it feels like. I worked as a vet tech and it is a pretty fast proceedure. Just snip, snip, snip and they recover fully. On a personal note I would choose not to declaw my own cat not because of the pain of the surgery but because if our cat ever did get out you've taken away one of their defense mechanisms. BUT, if it's a choice between declawing the cat or sending the cat to the pound, I would rather the cat be declawed. Now, my dad cut off one of his own fingers at his knuckle when I was a kid on a table saw. I can have him tell you how that feels. =)
Originally Posted By hopemax Growing up, we had 5 cats. The first four were successfully trained not to scratch where they shouldn't, and so my parents were always of the opinion that it was cruel to declaw them. But the 5th one...they spent 3 years trying to train her not to scratch. It wasn't the furniture, she went after, it was all the woodwork in their house. About a third of the doorframes up to about 3 ft were completely shredded. My parents started calculating the repair costs and they decided they would get her front claws removed instead.
Originally Posted By DlandJB We did not declaw our cats, although when we were looking to adopt I was hoping to get a declawed kitty. Just wanted an old, fat, spayed or neutered declawed cat. We ended up with two kittens who hadn't yet been spayed or neutered (one of each) and who still had their claws. But if you begin to trim their claws while they are still young, they don't fight you too much and it is easy to keep them trim...that isn't to say that we haven't had a few furniture issues. I would not declaw a cat today. As someone said, if they get outside they have no defenses, it is painful for them and it can sometimes affect their balance. They also tend to bite more, I have heard.
Originally Posted By jasmine7 Nope, my boy isn't declawed. My furniture has paid for it, but I just couldn't bring myself to get him declawed. There are some devices that you can get to help prevent a cat from clawing up furniture, though. I can't remember what it's called offhand, but I've seen it a lot on the cat communities I belong to on LiveJournal. Basically, they're little caps that you put on the cat's nails, and you can get them in just about any color. I'd love to get them for my Mahluli, but he hates to have his paws touched, so it's a no-go for me.
Originally Posted By SoThisIsLove We will never do it to Rhett, Scarlett, and Gary. They're more important than our furniture.
Originally Posted By Labuda I would NEVER declaw a cat. And I've been a kitty owner for about 15 years now. My babies are my babies and I would never mutilate them like that!
Originally Posted By jasmine7 Heh, I'm sorry to detract, but I have to say I love your cats' names, SoThis. It's almost like the old Sesame Street bit, "One of these things is not like the other." Hehe, I just love that, Scarlett, Rhett, and Gary. :-D
Originally Posted By LPFan22 Years ago I did have 2 of my cats declawed and I regret it today (thinking about the discomfort they were probably in) but at the time it saved mom's furniture, curtains, etc. We did try training without any success. At the time it was the best thing for the situation. The cats healed completely and never seemed off balance or uncomfortable. One lived to be 13 years old. The other is still living with mom... healthy and happy at 17 years old. Hubby and I rescued a 5 year old Maine Coon 2 years ago and she has claws. Her owner had died of cancer and the family didn't want her. We figured that was traumatic enough for our Bootsy so we kept her name and of course could not declaw her. I'll never have another cat declawed but I understand why some people do it. It depends on the situation.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Well, gonna have to disagree, folks. I've had two cats. One lived to be 14, the other is now 9 1/2, and both were declawed in the front at a young age. Neither cat showed signs of any resulting problem and have had completely normal and healthy lives. Both have been indoor cats. I don't consider it cruel, deforming or abuse. If I get another cat it will get declawed as well.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA We have four cats, none of them declawed, and our furniture doesn't get touched. We had to train them not to claw on the furniture, but they have a lovely kitty condo and other rugs that they use to claw around on. I'm of the opinion that declawing is a rather barbaric procedure, and is more for the convenience of the owner than for the comfort or health of the cat. But, everyone has his own opinion about declawing, and if they want to declaw a cat, he can certainly come up with a rationale for it. Here's a short article about declawing. <Is declawing cruel? Yes, it is. To remove a cat's claws is far worse than to deprive cat owners of their fingernails. This is because the claws have so many important functions in the life of a cat. A declawed cat is a maimed cat, and anyone considering having the operation done to his pet should think again. People hastily declaw cats hoping to protect their furniture as well as themselves from potential scratches. It's natural for a cat to scratch, but with a little human effort, you can direct that energy so that you, your cat, and your furniture can comfortably live together.> <a href="http://www.petstation.com/declaw.html" target="_blank">http://www.petstation.com/decl aw.html</a>
Originally Posted By cstephens I've heard enough bad things about declawing that we chose not to declaw Orkid. Mostly, I don't want to subject her to something that's not necessary. She does scratch us, and she does claw at the furniture, so the most we do is to clip her nails when they get long. We tried to discourage the scratching, and there are places where she's allowed to, but it hasn't taken completely. We tried the sticky stuff on the sofas, but it doesn't work unless we cover the entire sofa with it, and we were getting stuck on it more than she was. We have a spray bottle handy so that when she claws, we spray her, but it only seems to work as a temporary fix. And just to take advantage of talking about Orkid, here's a recent picture of her in a recent favorite place to sit: <a href="http://www.colddeadfish.net/images/Kitty/orkid30.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.colddeadfish.net/im ages/Kitty/orkid30.jpg</a>. Hmmm, a particular website seems to have gotten her attention: <a href="http://www.colddeadfish.net/images/Kitty/orkid33.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.colddeadfish.net/im ages/Kitty/orkid33.jpg</a>. (OK, so I kinda arranged that, but I still thought it was cute.) /cs
Originally Posted By avromark One's declawed (the one that clawed everything) my other cat is a good girl, so she's not declawed. The one that's clawed also happens to be a mouser though. The other one never did like the outdoors. My parents cats are declawed, my sisters is not.
Originally Posted By Tinkerbell819 I love the photo from #13, too! My cat, Fluffy still has her claws and like the #3 post said, a lot of the woodwork in our house has suffered because of it! lol (She never bothered the furniture, that would have been better b/c that eventually gets replaced. We planned on having the woodwork forever!) I saw a segment on 20/20 years ago, where the vet said it was like cutting our fingers off at the first knuckle and all of that and I swore I'd never do that to a cat, if I ever got one.
Originally Posted By avromark cstephens explain why you're not upgraded to Firefox 2.0 yet, it looks like 1 or 1.5
Originally Posted By jdub We had our hermit crab declawed. It was a big mess. Anyone want a slightly-used terrarium?
