Need help helping.

My aunt and her family recently adopted a very petite kitten from the local shelter. He looks to be a siamese mix with very pretty blue points. My problem is that my Aunt has some very old fashioned ideas about animal care. The idea at present is to see how the kitten does. If he doesn't "behave" then he's either going to be declawed or made into an outdoor/indoor cat. My plan at this point is to show them the proper way to clip his nails and to print out some information on declawing and the dangers of putting a cat outside in a busy area. I'm also going to strongly recommend they get 3 or 4 scratching posts(they have one cat already). Any other ideas would be most welcome.

This makes my second good deed in 2 days(you ladies are rubbing off LOL). We saw a stray wandering along the side of the road last night and pulled over to try and grab him. He ran into a corn field so we had to give up(didn't want to risk running around in a strange corn field in pitch black). Sigh, at least he got off the road.

Check out Stray Pet Advocacy's Declaw=Detoe section for a plethora of resources you can give her about the reality of declawing.

Bravo to you for making a stand about de-toeing. I would add that the family should go out and buy several cheap cardboard scratching pads now so that the kitten will learn while still a baby the right places to scratch. I haven't found a cat yet who doesn't love those cardboard pads!

I echo lotsocats sentiments - Bravo for making a stand about de-toeoing! Even the American Vet Association is against declawing, and supports educating people about providing proper items for cats to scratch, the importance of scratching in their lives and training cats to scratch "appropriately". There are VERY rarely any medical reasons to de-toe a cat, and many of them develop other behavior problems (like not peeing in the litterbox!!!!) or health problems as a result.

Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually Laurie, they aren't- unless their stance has changed recently. They are solidly backing many of the cat shelters that have mandatory declawing for cats they receive that are under 5 months of age. If you want me to, I will look through my files for the article and the reference.