Declawing Cats - Page 3  

I knew one of my friend's mentioned that, but I couldn't remember if it was the Swed or the Finn that said it... I wouldn't be surprised it Sweden has the same law concerning roaming pets, though.
I know certain parts of Australia have laws concerning loose cats, too, since there's been so much damage to the wildlife from ferals already.

As I said in a earlier post. Your couch doesn't come snuggle up in bed with you at night, it doesn't greet you at the door when you come home, either.

Oh, and I've taken a cat (back) claw to the eye as a child. It hurt and barely missed doing serious damage. I survived and my parents figured it as just one of those lessons a kid should learn... (Not sure what I learned. The cat did it accidentally while she was stretching her back legs)

Lets lock all pregnant women inside away from everything. Toxoplasmosis is commonly found in soil, undercooked meat, and even in some water sources.

Bartonella isn't just spread from claws. It can be spread through cat bites (do we yank out all their teeth to prevent this?) and from fleas - the latter being the common mode of infection for various types of bartonella.

Here is a short list of countries in which declawing cats is either illegal or considered extremely inhumane and only performed under extreme circumstances.

England
Scotland
Wales
Italy
France
Germany
Austria
Switzerland
Norway
Sweden
Netherlands
Northern Ireland
Ireland
Denmark
Finland
Slovenia
Portugal
Belgium
Brazil
Australia
New Zealand
Yugoslavia
Thailand



http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.ph...brary&show=002

It says "Finland" as my location next to my name, so no, I do not live in UK. This also mean that my heritage makes me unable to 'silverline' things, we propably lack that 'ass licking'-gene or something.

Yes, I have had my share of spraying and howling cats, I have 2 unneutered studs and one unspayed queen.

I don't care how many percents of cats in US are purebred, everyone who lets their cat get pregnant is resposible to take proper care of the kittens and make sure they are brought up to behave so that they don't cause any harm.

I don't know how much cats are in Texas, but I do know there is overpopulation problems almost everywhere. Yet I'm going to intentionally breed more cats (pedigreed). Not large amounts though, as I'm aiming for quality and health instead of quantity.

Your excuses for declawing are just hilarious, if a family has a cat that is aggressive and scratches their child, declawing is not going to make things better.. You do realize that the cat will start biting when it can't use it's claws. And toxoplasmosis? Are you one of those who think that when a woman gets pregnant they must get rid of the cat so they don't get toxoplasmosis, the most common way to get infected (if cat related) is from feces, not claws....

I think the subject was up earlier, atleast I remember asking StefanZ (Swe) if they have a similar law and he said they do, but it's not very well supervised. We have the same situation here (Fin), but if you contact the police or take the roaming cat to a shelter and they find out who it belongs to, the owner will be fined (if it's obvious that the cat is allowed to go out on it's own, which you can actually quite easily tell from its coat in these latitudes). You will also have to pay more fines if the cat has killed certain birds or animals, and it can come quite costly (for example I've read a bout a case where a cat killed a baby swan and the owner was fined over 2000€ because it was a swan, and then some more because the cat was outside on it's own).

...I've had a close call with an adult swan, how the heck did a cat manage to catch a baby and get it away before the parents came after it?! Crazy cat.

I can see why they'd fine more in those situations. Hopefully the threat of high fines helps keep people more responsible and keep the numbers of strays and ferals down in populated areas.

And you're intent on demonizing it, which is equally bewildering to me, I assure you.

The PETA comment was regarding your pride in the use of government force, when others who supposedly care more about animals than you would probably like to outlaw you even having a companion animal at all (which they consider slavery). Just something to consider when waving around the ban-hammer. Then again, I'm a Libertarian.

For a background, I love my kitties that I rescued, and thanks to their temperament (see videos of my fur-family here: http://www.youtube.com/user/DumbDuck.../0/VFLUs8Hx2UU) they weren't candidates for a declaw, as again declawing isn't a first resort IMO. If they had been little demons causing thousands of dollars in damage, and I couldn't control it by safer non-surgical remedies, I would have them laser declawed (expensive, but much safer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qv0z7EfTII ) before abandoning them to their fate in a shelter.

And with the number of cats that are being put to sleep as I finish this sentence, I don't understand the attitude of just discouraging adoptions.

I was wondering the same thing! But then again my grandfather's cat once brought home a very young fox cub... No ideas how she got it, she also hunted rabbits. It may have been dead already when she found it. They lived in the middle of nowhere and the cat was supposed to kill mice in and outside of the house, seems like they weren't enough.

And in the United States, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, and many more it is common practice. Not that numbers somehow makes for a good argument, but in how many countries is it ACTUALLY illegal? I'm no expert, but I know its bogus about Thailand, as a friend has a declawed cat there.

And listing England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland separate? Cmon now. Germany fits easily inside Texas, so I suppose I should create a list of fifty states to make the other side's list longer?

First of all, cats are not "demons", they are cats, with cat instincts, cat behavior, cat thoughts, I implore you to stop trying to "demonize" normal animal feline behavior (the need to scratch, stretch, etc.). But by removing joints/knuckles/necessary parts from animals (and yes, it IS comparible to removing the first joint on human fingers, perhaps worse, as we don't use our hands to walk on, express scent through, stretch our whole skeletal system with) THAT is what is horrid, that is what is perhaps "demonic"..

Secondly, this is not a political conversation, we are talking about an outdated and needless mutilation of a cat's most fundamental characteristic, claws, it's what makes a cat, a cat. (Do you also advocate remove a dog's vocal cords when they bark too much?) Hopefully, if your cats were "causing thousands of dollars in damage", you might choose to rehome them to ones who did not value "things" over animals, rather than resorting to mutilating their front paws. (Laser surgery is just as destructive, the same outcome and pain/problems)

Thirdly, I'm not going to get into a debate about Peta, or argue with you about why your quote "..I don't understand the attitude of just discouraging adoptions..." is just nonsensical in this discussion, no one is discouraging adoptions here, stop trying to twist your pro-declawing stance into a anti-adoption theme, K? It's tiresome.

Whether you want to believe it or not, declawing is a horrific, painful and unnecessary mutilation. At least 95% of the people on this site will agree with that. And I for one believe it should be completely illegal worldwide and only performed if medically necessary. There is absolutely no reason that an innocent cat should have to go through the pain of a declawing surgery. I understand why some people do it, but I don't agree with it at all.

PETA and many other "animal welfare" groups are absolutely ridiculous. There have been countless reports of animal cruelty by such groups. PETA openly opposes the no kill movement. That alone should be enough to show that the "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals" really aren't ethical at all. Since July of 1998 to the beginning of this year, PETA euthanized 23,640 adoptable cats, dogs, kittens, and puppies. Last year alone, they 'rescued' 2,366 animals. Only 8 of them found homes. 31 were transferred to other shelters, and the rest were killed. That's a 97% kill rate. Since July of 98 they have killed 86% of all the animals that were in their care.

PETA has an annual budget of about $33 million, but does it all go towards helping animals? No. An estimated $7 million is used just on media campaigns telling people that eating meat, drinking milk, hunting, fishing, wearing leather shoes, and benefiting from medical research performed on lab rats is all "unethical". PETA cares more about their advertising budget than finding homes for the average of six animals they kill every day.


You say you love you're kitties. But if they had been little demons as you say, you would declaw. That doesn't show love in my opinion. If you aren't willing to work with your animals so you can live together in harmony, you don't deserve to have animals in your life. If they scratch the furniture or scratch you, you have to make them understand that it's wrong. If you want to teach them to use the scratching post, show them how to use it. You have to start scratching it. Naturally they will want to imitate you. Don't force them to use it. If they are scratching the couch, don't put them in front of the scratching post and physically make them scratch it. They will see that as a negative consequence. You have to encourage them to scratch the things that should be scratched and discourage them from scratching things that shouldn't be scratched. Declawing is not a last resort, it's a lazy person's quick fix.

What? Obviously I am. They don't claw, because I have spent $650 in cat furniture for them to claw on (wave, turbo scratcher, tower, condos, the works), and spend plenty of time correcting them to use only those which they mostly do (exception to my arm and rug which is a work in progress).

I even put up a little perch shelf system for em which they lurv: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvHjtWiUsiM

Not ALL cats take well to training or are adopted as tiny kittens. One of my coworker's cats has to be put under just to try and clip her nails. Cats are just like people, they are not all universally the same and do not all universally take well to training and redirection. Fact.

And again with the discouragement of adoption of "not deserving". Even if I agreed with you that they don't, which is nonsense, you're taking from a pool that is over 70% put to death as the alternative to finding a loving home. That makes as much sense as PETA, letting animals die rather than be showered with affection in "slavery" with "horrible mutilation" (despite the fact that the only two declawed cats I know well are very agile little seemingly happy balls of fur that seem awfully affectionate and playful to be in obvious agony).

Now, wait, I lived in Japan, and never met ONE de-clawed Japanese cat. Some of the military families had de-clawed cats, and their Japanese friends would be positively horrified when they found out. They thought it was maximum cruelty. Our neighbors took their cat to a Japanese vet to be neutered ("neutered and de-clawed" the way it's a package deal in the U.S.) and asked for him to be de-clawed, and the vet read them the riot act for even asking about it. That was 15 years ago, but can the entire sensibilities of a nation change so much in 15 years that now it's "common"? I doubt it. Where do you get your info? As far as I know, the U.S. and Canada are the ONLY places it could be called common.

Please do not reword and change the context so you can feel triumphant batting around a straw man.

And I am sorry, but you can love a cat WITHOUT loving certain instinctual behavior.

Yes it is instinct to want to claw other animals and children whose body language they may not have learned, and on inanimate objects like silk sheets, leather couches, curtains, Persian rugs, and so forth just as it is instinct to urine mark, spray, fight other male cats, and howl throughout the day.

That behavior is natural, but you don't have to love it, and I don't think anyone here with a straight face can say that they do.

The latter can't really be fixed without surgery, the former can which I can attest to personally, but is not 100% guaranteed to be effective on each and every cat nor the risk worthwhile for every household that may include the immunodeficient.

You didn't answer my question about your info on Japan. . .did you just make it up?

I do have one cat who is de-clawed (dumped in my neighborhood that way. . .nice), and I do consider him to be crippled. He walks very awkwardly and has fallen off the furniture many times. He can't climb, and when he jumps onto something he skids right off the other side. He also has no self-confidence, so the other cat pick on him, and his litterbox habits are not great. But I can't guarantee the behavioral issues are related to his being de-clawed, but what else would have caused them? He also NEVER "scratches" anything. I feel bad that he can't be "re-clawed". I'd do it if it were possible.

Take a deep breath champ, I'm not refreshing the page every five seconds. =P

Interesting that with the numerous exaggerations, absurd anthropomorphization, inaccurate anatomical analogies and other wild claims, you only question those that challenge your position. How objective of you. And I take it if you can disprove that, then the entire stack of cards has fallen and you can hang a Mission Accomplished banner above the deck of an aircraft carrier, heh.

I don't have any specific statistics, its not a major point regardless (Japan is also the child pornography capital of the world), but here's a wiki if that means anything http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychectomy
"Although common in North America, and Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and China, declawing is increasingly becoming unpopular and considered an act of animal cruelty in certain other regions"

So does Wesley, and he has very nice sharp claws since I haven't clipped them recently. Correlation != causation.

Do you also oppose soft-claws that we tried on my kitties?


Clipping and worse yet blunting her claws with caps renders them virtually useless. She hated having them put on, but after behaved normally. They don't stick at all for climbing and are less than useless for octagon cage fighting, but that doesn't stop my athlete in the slightest, as she doesn't have any surface where she needs that kind of vertical traction, and her rear claws are plenty for inside tree climbing stabilization.

I have used Soft Claws, and I think they're useful for preventing damage while training the cat, or for, say, a cat who likes to knead a lot, but his owners have delicate skin or something. And I don't object to their use because they're not permanent and not painful. But, I don't think they should be used unnecessarily. I put them on a few of my cats, just for fun, and it frustrated them to not be able to use their claws fully. So I won't be using them for fun anymore. But the cats wearing Soft Claws were still able to climb the cat tree and had some use of their claws (like scooping their toys up with their paws), the de-clawed cat can't climb at all (his back claws do have some purchase, but he can't stabilize his front paws so he slips right off), and he can't play with toys the same way. It's sad to watch.

I can't imagine the Japanese embracing de-clawing, because of the violent objection to it I saw while there. But who knows. . .I haven't been back so I can't say. I just wondered where you got your info. I wonder where Wikipedia gets that info--there's no reference for that statement. (Note: just checked, and someone must have edited that statement out because I can't find it. There is no mention of de-clawing in Asia at all)

I also think it's funny that they say that de-clawing is becoming "increasingly unpopular" in some places. It's never been popular in those places, it's a relatively new procedure. I don't think it was done routinely before 1980 or so.

My main objection to de-clawing is that it renders the cat helpless forever. It's unrealistic to think that in a 20-year lifespan, the cat will never need his claws to save his life.

I agree, it is dangerous were the cat to ever escape, which Wesley the adventurer has already done twice (luckily was able to grab him and bring him back in).

If it were to boil down to a family returning a kitty to a shelter for destructive clawing (which usually means euthanasia) though, recommending alternatives up to laser declaw as a last resort is kindof a no-brainer.

After all, per the ASPCA: "One of the the most common reasons for adult cats being surrendered in animal shelters is due to destruction of property."

God only know why you keep this going and going about how good declawing is!!!

Oh FYI I would also seperate the 4 countries out in great britain as we all have seperate goverments and to an extent laws!!!!

FYI, most Americans don't know geography (including information about resources, culture, and governments) very well. Unless one studies it that tends to be an area largely skipped. Which probably doesn't surprise you much to learn.

Hahaha very very true

50 states of the US have their own laws as well, cmon now, they were just trying to make the list look longer rather than simply putting the UK as any normal person would have done, and sprinkling in non-verifiable subjective claims lumping in the "majority moral rejection". And regarding geography, well, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as.

And I lived in various states of the US, Germany, France, Spain, and Singapore, thank you very much. =p

Have you ever thought that maybe she was "unpleasant and unfriendly" due to being declawed? In fact I can honestly say that I have never met a declawed cat who DIDN'T have behavioral problems of some sort. Take my Mom's cat, Oliver (who she adopted from a shelter by the way), for example. His previous owner had all 4 of his paws declawed. Now when Ollie wants to, he can be the sweetest thing, then for no apparent reason, he can just "snap". He bites, and very easily breaks skin, as that is his only means of defence.
Growing up, my grandparents had a cat they declawed named Minka. (They luckily know better now.) That cat would hiss if anyone so much as looked at her, and if you didn't see her and walked by her, she would beat the crap out of your leg, hissing, growling, etc.
Another of the many examples I have. There is a couple who fosters for one of the same organizations I do. They have 3 cats of their own, all of which were declawed. I went over to their house one day and met the cats. 2 of the 3 would nip/growl at the slightest provacation, and the third I never even saw because from what they said "She hides most of the day and is very skittish."

The point being you have no idea what Alvie went through when she was declawed, what behavioral changes may have occured or the pain she most inevitably went through. You also are simply guessing about what may have been. So really is there a way to say that declawing is better than what you perceive the alternative COULD have been? I'm sorry, but in my own personal opinion, I don't think so.

The whole point of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit the articles, which is why it isn't an airtight source of information to back-up your viewpoint in a discussion.

I'm from the Netherlands and the dutch seem to be managing cat ownership pretty well with declawing being illegal. It's just a matter of common sense; if you have a lot of fragile stuff do not get a cat or put your stuff away.
You are using all kinds of far-fetched arguments to justify such a barbaric practice while there are whole nations of cat owners who get along just fine without it. Where there is a will there is a way, and if someone does not have the will do they really love cats or are they just an accessory that should complement the furniture ? (and heaven forbid they scratch it )

At least TWENTY SIX civilized countries, and they all contain many many cat lovers and cat owners. I belong to a lot of forums and talk to people all over the world. They're first introductions to declaw issues are always met with shock that this kind of butchery is allowed.

Your comparisons, as usual, are specious.

Since this thread is going around and around and starting to get a bit personal, I am now closing it.

Here is the official TCS stance on declawing -

I personally had no idea how barbaric declawing was until I joined this site. My childhood cat was declawed in the normal assembly line "declaw and spay" procedure that is common around here. Looking back, she did have some behavioral issues that could have been caused by the declaw.

Back then my parents and I were not educated in the specifics of declawing. Many people here in the US are not. Sure, here on TCS we all are and most of us would never think of declawing. For the record, I don't think very highly of those that know what it entails and then still go out and have their cat declawed.

While this probably isn't the proper place to do so, I urge all of you to be gentle with a new member that joins and inquires about declawing or states they are having their cat declawed. We need to gently and in a positive manner educate others on what declawing really is. Having people scream at them will only make them run away as fast as they can. Remember, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.