Originally Posted By t1lersm0m <<We figured that was traumatic enough for our Bootsy so we kept her name and of course could not declaw her.>> I named our cat Boots. LOL Becaues he is mostly black with a little patch of white to the right of his nose, a patch of white on his chest, and white feet but black legs. He looks like he has boots. WHen I told Tyler the name, he said "Like Puss N Boots." I hadn't even thought of that.
Originally Posted By t1lersm0m See, it was much more interesting reading everyone's stories about their cats than just going to Google for the answer. Here is a picture of our cat: <a href="http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=4297632&a=31715662&p=75085323" target="_blank">http://albums.photo.epson.com/ j/ViewPhoto?u=4297632&a=31715662&p=75085323</a> We only took his picture in the office so far because that's where he likes to hang out until he gets used to the dogs. cstephens, your cat is adorable!
Originally Posted By alexbook Hooray for rescuing abandoned cats! That makes you officially a Good Person®.
Originally Posted By debtee I've never heard of this procedure before it sounds Horrible! I don't know ANYONE that has done this, in fact I'm not even sure it's done in Australia. It sounds such a drastic thing to so to a poor kitty and I'm not even a cat person!
Originally Posted By cstephens We adopted Orkid from an organization that rescues cats. Some of the stories they tell are just heartbreaking - they're based at a Petsmart, so people just leave their animals in the dumpster behind the store, in boxes in the parking lot or just in the parking lot. And on many occasions, they're just baby kitties, sometimes so young that they need to be hand fed. I'll never understand how someone can leave a helpless animal out pretty much to die. Ummm, declawing cats - I can't remember which ones, but I know some communities actually make it illegal to declaw a cat. I think Santa Monica, CA might be one of them. /cs
Originally Posted By sherrytodd <<I don't know ANYONE that has done this, in fact I'm not even sure it's done in Australia.>> We had an vet student from the UK who was visiting the US on an internship and worked for a while at our clinic. He was shocked at the declawing, tail docks and ear docks and clipping dew claws. Said it is never done in the UK.
Originally Posted By LuLu "Declawing has been illegal in England for several years. Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Wales, Finland and Brazil are among the many countries that either consider declawing illegal or inhumane, and only allow it under extreme circumstances." I just have to say that Orkid is such a great name on several levels :-D
Originally Posted By debtee Yes that's right Sherrytodd, tail docking, ear clipping and clipping dew claws are illegal here in Australia as well with big fines if you are caught doing it. So I'm assuming that declawing a cat would be too! I'm just having trouble understanding why anyone would think this is a good idea? It's barbaric in my opinion.
Originally Posted By TiggerPooh1973 I have had several cats over my life, and we have three now. None have ever been declawed and I never would even consider it. I think it is very inhumane. We have been lucky in training our cats not to scratch where they shouldn't and have never had a problem with it.
Originally Posted By Lisann22 My clawed pyscho kitty... <a href="http://www.catster.com/pet_page.php?i=58121" target="_blank">http://www.catster.com/pet_pag e.php?i=58121</a>
Originally Posted By cstephens Lulu wrote: >I just have to say that Orkid is such a great name on several levels :-D We can't claim credit for coming up with the name. We named her after one of the killer whales at Sea World San Diego. Here's the original Orkid: <a href="http://www.colddeadfish.net/images/Kitty/namesake.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.colddeadfish.net/im ages/Kitty/namesake.jpg</a>. (And no, she's not the one that was in the news a couple weeks ago.) Sometimes, we think naming her after the killer whale might have been a mistake, because our kitty is often just as mischievous and rambunctious and stubborn as her namesake! /cs
Originally Posted By peeaanuut <<I'm just having trouble understanding why anyone would think this is a good idea? It's barbaric in my opinion.>> We were told by so many vets to get our latest kitty declawed. She is a pollydactyl and has 7 claws on each from paw and 8 on each rear. Every vet after there examination said she needed to be declawed because they were growing into each other and would eventually cause her more pain. All im saying is that it is not so cut and dry.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ This is a very controversial topic, and I'm not reading any of the posts except the orginal one asking the question. I've had 3 different cats declawed. One was a kitten at the time of the procedure, the other two were adults. Not one of them suffered. They were supposed to be kept quiet for a couple of days after coming home. No dice. They were up and running within a couple of hours. The two adult cats had been indoor/outdoor cats. When we moved to our apartment, they became indoor cats. I'm allergic to fleas, and this was before Advantage and Frontline. Well, the cats clawed holes in the carpet and clawed furniture. My husband and I both worked, so even though we tried every method to correct the behavior, it didn't work. We even tried trimming and capping their claws. Our choices were to declaw or give up our cats. We talked with our vet, who agreed declawing was the best solution. The 3rd cat was declawed when she joined the family. My cats were 100% indoor cats after declawing. Letting them outside would have left them at a distinct disadvantage and would have been cruel. I have no problem with declawing cats if it is for the right reasons.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad In reply to the original post, YES we do. 2 of them, which is 2 too many, but they belong to the kids so what do you do?
Originally Posted By FaMulan My beastie has all four sets of claws. I have my handy claw clipper and when they get to be too long, he visits Salon a la Mom for a mani-pedi. I've been doing that since he was a kitten.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ Okay, I've read all the posts now! I'm glad to see this topic hasn't gotten as passionate as I thought it would be. My dog had his dew claws removed before we got him at 8 weeks old. It's part of the show dog thing here, and since both of his parents were show dogs, the breeder had this proceedure done to all 10 puppies.
Originally Posted By debtee < We were told by so many vets to get our latest kitty declawed. She is a pollydactyl and has 7 claws on each from paw and 8 on each rear. Every vet after there examination said she needed to be declawed because they were growing into each other and would eventually cause her more pain. All im saying is that it is not so cut and dry.> Yes i agree it's not so cut and dry and I'm sorry to hear your kitty had a problem that caused her pain, so I'm pleased it was able to be fixed. I will ask my vet Tamara, what happens in Australia when this issue occurs as I'm sure if declawing is illegal here, they have had to come up with another solution. I do know when I went to some dog shows a few years ago with Woody, that removing dew claws is not something that's done in Aus and is frowned upon by our breeders when they talk about dogs from the USA. So is the pinning back of ears for breeds like Boxers. They see it as a fault in breeding circles here and the UK.
