Putting them in the box doesn't help for spraying anyways, spraying isn't them peeing in the wrong place or lack of always using the litter box. You have to do what you have to do and no one has a right to judge someone on that. I have known more than a couple cat who actually sprayed while in the litter box, now tell me another way to fix that?
I have had plenty of people judge me for having my cat Spaz(RB 2002, thank you MIL for killing her, and yes that is sarcasm) declawed. The situation was she was being extremely destructive toward humans with her claws. I had her attack my face and scratch all to heck while I was asleep, had her attack me full-out claws while sitting on the couch, attack with claws simply because you walked across the room. This was to the point of drawing serious blood, my boyfriend(now ex-husband) had to get stitches after one of her attacks. This was not normal cat scratching or attacks(like her attacking our feet at the end of the bed through the covers, that was normal and even cute), this was way beyond that, which is obvious from the measures we went through to stop this. We went to the vet and, after verifying she was in good health and ruled out anything medical we tried everything suggested(and yes we consulted multiple vets), from behavior modification, to behaviorists, to medication, to I can't even remember(this was like 9 or 10 years ago)we tried literally everything suggested to stop this behavior, shelled out money that we didn't have. She was never feral, we knew the person we got her from(and all her cats who were all well treated), she was raised inside a house, was very well socialized(she loved anyone and everyone). we had met both of Spaz's parents, and asked if her brother was having similar issues when this started(he wasn't.) She did this as a kitten(first time was while I was asleep and she was maybe 4 months old) through adulthood(obviously it took years before we exhausted everything.) Finally the vet had nothing else to offer but to declaw her. Yes, I know exactly what declawing is and how it is done, and what it involves but I had no other choice. It was either have her put to sleep(no rescue would or obviously could re-home her due to this and we couldn't keep her, we couldn't afford having to go to the doctor to get patched up all the time nor could we even think about having kids when she was so unpredictable) or get her declawed. I saw no reason to have her put to sleep since she was a healthy, happy, and loving cat when she wasn't attacking us for no reason, and yes it was for no reason, there was never a set pattern of when she would do it, remember we used a behaviorist to try and cure this and they(yes, we tried more than one) couldn't ever figure out why she was doing this or what was possibly setting her off. I mean why do you think we named her Spaz? This wasn't about saving my furniture, we had an old and obviously useless leather car phone(remember those from the '80s) case that we gave her to scratch and she used that, she never scratched a single bit of furniture that she wasn't allowed to. We had an old vinyl chair that boyfriend used at his computer that we hated with a passion so we let her use that until the chair finally and thankfully broke. She did pull stuffing out the recliner through a hole that was already there but she did that even after getting declawed, it was annoying because it made a mess but I could see my 7 year old doing the exact same thing when he was younger. This was about the fact that she was causing us to have to seek medical attention, multiple times because of these attacks. An ER even the cops in to interview me thinking my boyfriend was abusing me and I was lying to protect him and I got a psych evaluation to verify I wasn't crazy. She never used her teeth aggressively, just her claws. Go ahead and judge me, accuse me me of abusing my cat and tell me what I should have done instead of declawing her. Chances are I tried it and it didn't work.
These issues are not always black and white, there are many shades of gray. Just like people no two animals are the same and what worked for one might not work for another. Until you have experienced one of these issues don't judge how someone handles it. She has said it worked, she only had to do it twice and it hasn't harmed the cat in any way, either physically or mentally. I've been there and sometimes the only solution is not one you want to take but the one you have to because it works and solves the issue. When all conventional methods fail sometimes you have to try the unconventional ones. Tapping a cat on the bum and putting her nose to smell what she did is not abuse, she never said she was rubbing the cat's nose in it as far as I know, she was having the cat know what she got a tap on the bum for. Obviously the cat made the connection since the behavior ceased.
Taryn
I have had plenty of people judge me for having my cat Spaz(RB 2002, thank you MIL for killing her, and yes that is sarcasm) declawed. The situation was she was being extremely destructive toward humans with her claws. I had her attack my face and scratch all to heck while I was asleep, had her attack me full-out claws while sitting on the couch, attack with claws simply because you walked across the room. This was to the point of drawing serious blood, my boyfriend(now ex-husband) had to get stitches after one of her attacks. This was not normal cat scratching or attacks(like her attacking our feet at the end of the bed through the covers, that was normal and even cute), this was way beyond that, which is obvious from the measures we went through to stop this. We went to the vet and, after verifying she was in good health and ruled out anything medical we tried everything suggested(and yes we consulted multiple vets), from behavior modification, to behaviorists, to medication, to I can't even remember(this was like 9 or 10 years ago)we tried literally everything suggested to stop this behavior, shelled out money that we didn't have. She was never feral, we knew the person we got her from(and all her cats who were all well treated), she was raised inside a house, was very well socialized(she loved anyone and everyone). we had met both of Spaz's parents, and asked if her brother was having similar issues when this started(he wasn't.) She did this as a kitten(first time was while I was asleep and she was maybe 4 months old) through adulthood(obviously it took years before we exhausted everything.) Finally the vet had nothing else to offer but to declaw her. Yes, I know exactly what declawing is and how it is done, and what it involves but I had no other choice. It was either have her put to sleep(no rescue would or obviously could re-home her due to this and we couldn't keep her, we couldn't afford having to go to the doctor to get patched up all the time nor could we even think about having kids when she was so unpredictable) or get her declawed. I saw no reason to have her put to sleep since she was a healthy, happy, and loving cat when she wasn't attacking us for no reason, and yes it was for no reason, there was never a set pattern of when she would do it, remember we used a behaviorist to try and cure this and they(yes, we tried more than one) couldn't ever figure out why she was doing this or what was possibly setting her off. I mean why do you think we named her Spaz? This wasn't about saving my furniture, we had an old and obviously useless leather car phone(remember those from the '80s) case that we gave her to scratch and she used that, she never scratched a single bit of furniture that she wasn't allowed to. We had an old vinyl chair that boyfriend used at his computer that we hated with a passion so we let her use that until the chair finally and thankfully broke. She did pull stuffing out the recliner through a hole that was already there but she did that even after getting declawed, it was annoying because it made a mess but I could see my 7 year old doing the exact same thing when he was younger. This was about the fact that she was causing us to have to seek medical attention, multiple times because of these attacks. An ER even the cops in to interview me thinking my boyfriend was abusing me and I was lying to protect him and I got a psych evaluation to verify I wasn't crazy. She never used her teeth aggressively, just her claws. Go ahead and judge me, accuse me me of abusing my cat and tell me what I should have done instead of declawing her. Chances are I tried it and it didn't work.
These issues are not always black and white, there are many shades of gray. Just like people no two animals are the same and what worked for one might not work for another. Until you have experienced one of these issues don't judge how someone handles it. She has said it worked, she only had to do it twice and it hasn't harmed the cat in any way, either physically or mentally. I've been there and sometimes the only solution is not one you want to take but the one you have to because it works and solves the issue. When all conventional methods fail sometimes you have to try the unconventional ones. Tapping a cat on the bum and putting her nose to smell what she did is not abuse, she never said she was rubbing the cat's nose in it as far as I know, she was having the cat know what she got a tap on the bum for. Obviously the cat made the connection since the behavior ceased.
Taryn
