I just cringe at the thought of someone sticking something down my throat and scraping my vocal chords up. If we heard of this being done to people, there would be complete outrage.
In my years at TH, in which we take on exclusively special cases and special needs kitties, I have seen a total of 2 cats- out of hundreds and maybe thousands of cats- that had to be declawed for medical reasons. One was a poly with nails who were growing back into his paw and making it impossible to walk...and only the problem claws were removed. Another case which hasn't but MIGHT result in a declaw is a poor little girl named Gigi who has a disorder in which her skin is easily torn by normal grooming, scrathcing and playing. She's in a crate and wearing softpaws at this point, but it may not prove to be a permanent solution.
My point, basically, is that I just don't see how a medical reason would crop up that would necessitate the vocal chords being scraped, since a deformity would probably not cause pair or damage to the rest of the dog. If the dog is neurotic, then debarking isn't going to help...the dog will still try to bark, and often debarked dogs just develop scar tissue on the vocal chords and can start right on barking again. Taking away the bark doesn't comfort the dog or take away the anxiety.
In my years at TH, in which we take on exclusively special cases and special needs kitties, I have seen a total of 2 cats- out of hundreds and maybe thousands of cats- that had to be declawed for medical reasons. One was a poly with nails who were growing back into his paw and making it impossible to walk...and only the problem claws were removed. Another case which hasn't but MIGHT result in a declaw is a poor little girl named Gigi who has a disorder in which her skin is easily torn by normal grooming, scrathcing and playing. She's in a crate and wearing softpaws at this point, but it may not prove to be a permanent solution.
My point, basically, is that I just don't see how a medical reason would crop up that would necessitate the vocal chords being scraped, since a deformity would probably not cause pair or damage to the rest of the dog. If the dog is neurotic, then debarking isn't going to help...the dog will still try to bark, and often debarked dogs just develop scar tissue on the vocal chords and can start right on barking again. Taking away the bark doesn't comfort the dog or take away the anxiety.