Need declawling alternative

[samantha630]

HELP! I need a declawing alternative!! I DON'T want to declaw and these are the things I've already tried - if anyone has something new, please let me know! I'm getting new furniture and my old (it's only 4 years old) sofa is in shreds! Trim the claws? Can't do that, he pulls and wiggles so much I am afraid of slipping and cutting the blood line... Claw caps? No, there's no way I could hold the paw still long enough to get even ONE on. Scratching post? Won't use it, will squeeze around it to get at the couch. Discipline? No, he does it only at night or when no one is home (smart little devil!

)
Maybe there is something else that will work and that I can actually manage to do?

 

[hissy]

Samatha, we have this discussion a lot in these forums.

Here are some links:

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...ight=declawing


http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...ight=declawing

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...ight=declawing


http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...&threadid=8450

 

[samantha630]

I'll check these out! Thanks!

 

[dragonlady]

and they can trim the nails and apply the nail caps. They usually won't charge much.

 

[fitzy's mom]

Try wrapping him in a towel to trim his nails. Fitzy's the same way--he'll wiggle away unless he's bundled in a towel. You have to wrap him up tight (enough to hold him but not so much that he can't breathe) so only one front foot will come out at a time and then the back ones are easy. Smith and Foster's also makes a thing you can put him in to cut their nails DrSmithandFosters.com (i think)

 

[mollydoats]

When Silas is sleeping, I go up to him and slowly take a paw and rub it and pet it. If he seems comfortable with this, I will take the nail clippers and do one nail at a time. Sometimes I only get 1 or 2 clipped at one time. But I just wait until later on or the next day. I do this pretty regularly and now Silas is pretty calm about the whole thing. I also make it a point to pet his paws all the time, even when I'm not going to clip them. It makes him more comfortable with it. Hope that helped!

 

[samantha630]

Dragon Lady,

How long do the caps stay on? If I had them put on at his yearly exam, would they stay on for a year or would I have to keep bringing him back? (I may sound really stupid, but I have no idea)

I went to that cat site that showed the declawing procedure (I wasn't going to have it done anyway, but I DID have another cat done 20 years ago - he was put down at age 18) I'm sitting here in tears! That is AWFUL!! I never knew THAT!! I had to hug my Sammy and tell him I'd never EVER do that to him!!

I really thought it was just having the claw surgically removed, they had a little pain a day or 2 (like after being neutered or spayed) and that was it. I bet a LOT of people think like I did! My reasons at first for not wanting to get it done was that Sammy is 5 or so (not sure, we adopted him from a shelter 2 years ago) - and I figured he had enough trauma in his life and I didn't want to have him put under anesthesia in case something would go wrong. But now I was totally enlightened! I want to thank you people!

 

[valanhb]

Yeah! Another declawing convert!

Unfortunately, what you thought is what the vets WANT people to think. In fact, that's pretty much how my vet explained the surgery to me (I was not informed of what it was, and took my vet's suggestion

) when I asked what it entailed. People are generally misinformed about declawing because most vets won't tell you what is really involved even when asked and the only way to find out is through sites like this one and word of mouth from cat lover to cat lover.

From what I understand, the caps stay on for about 6 weeks. If you look at the following link, it starts off as a discussion on declawing and then turns more to Soft Paws on the bottom of Page 2, pros and cons, pictures of kitties with Soft Paws on (it looks like they are wearing nail polish!), and more questions on Soft Paws. Of course, there's still a few comments on declawing included in the threads after page 2, but it's pretty interesting.

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...5&pagenumber=2