Op-Ed: AP-Petside Poll on Declawing is Alarming
Published February 22, 2011
It would be a huge understatement to say I was greatly dismayed with the results of the recent AP-Petside.com poll, asking American Pet owners if they thought declawing cats was an acceptable practice. According to the poll results 59% of pet owners, which included 55% of cat owners thought that it was fine!
What I find difficult to understand is why folks who claim to truly love their cats continue to believe that the surgery is simple procedure, posing minimal risk to the well being of their cats. However, in reality, front claw declawing is the amputation of each toe bone at the first joint (Rear paw declawing is not commonly performed). The surgery is far from benign and requires intensive pain control medication.
Worse yet, some practitioners do not provide adequate pain control, which results in cats being in horrendous post-surgery pain that can last for extensive periods of time.
Chances are, folks that make the decision to have their cats declawed to prevent damage to furniture, carpets or an accidental scratch or two, have the surgery performed due to the lack of sufficient information about what the procedure really entails. This information should be provided by their veterinarian but isn't always, rendering the owner unable to make an informed consent. It is indeed very sad for the people who often regret their decision to have their cat declawed when behavioral and physical problems develop following the surgery.
Potential complications from declawing include: Infections, lameness, regrowth of claws requiring further surgery, joint stiffness and arthritis. As a result of the surgery, some cats may even resort to biting as a first line of defense, using their teeth since they have been deprived of their claws.
Additionally, several myths still continue to abound about how declawing cats helps prevent them from being surrendered to shelters, when in fact, according to studies, 15% of cats that are declawed will develop litter box avoidance behavior which is one of the leading reasons that people surrender cats to shelters. Another perpetuated myth is cats make better pets once they are declawed.
Even though the American Veterinary Medical Association recommends that declawing cats should be a last resort measure, and many expert feline behaviorists suggest that declawing should not be considered a routine procedure, many practitioners continue to offer package deals when combined with neutering and spaying. Young Kittens are not given an opportunity to learn to use scratching posts. Owners are not trained to clip nails or to have soft paws applied to the claws as an alternative.
It is indeed strange that in over 37 countries around the world and in several California cities where the surgery is banned, people seem to be able to live happily with cats that have their claws. I bet if the poll was directed to those folks, the results would have been startlingly different.
What do you think? Leave a comment and share your views.
Image Source: Flickr user minkuni
Shortly after retiring as a social worker and psychotherapist, I discovered my "writer's voice"…
News & Blogs
Leave a Comment
No account? Sign up here.
Your Privacy
Comments (18)
Becky, humans do not receive amputations because the offending limbs are inconvenient to others, they have them when there is something seriously wrong and there is no other option. Also, humans know what is being done to them and why.
If you love your cats, find them a new home where someone doesn't care, rather than subjecting them to amputation. I don't actually think the behavioural affects should even matter to a loving pet owner. If you love your pet, the fact that you are putting it through unnecessary pain, and the potential physical problems that can follow due to the operation should be enough to change your mind.
TO BECKY - So because you don't provide tall sisal scratchers for your cat to scratch instead of him having to scratch the woodwork, you are going to cripple his paws by butchering off his finger bones for the rest of their lives because of your negligence? That is pretty heartless. Search around the web for pictures of cats recovering from "declaw" surgery if you are really looking for the truth about it.
Becky, I sympathize with your dilemma over your cats eating the wood splinters, but the wood-ingesting behavior can be addressed in other ways than by amputating the toes. The compulsion to ingest non-food objects, known as pica, is an abnormal behavior which has some other cause unrelated to toes or claws that your vet should be investigating. Declawing the cats isn't going to prevent them getting ahold of nonfood items from other sources, is it? And in your example of the cat scratching his own fur out, I would hope that the veterinarian in question in that case has throroughly assessed the cat for allergies or other causes of compulsive scratching or overgrooming? It's possible that both your wood-eating cats and this compulsive self-scratcher could be treated with medications to control the abnormal behaviors, without resorting to the amputation of healthy toes. I know of precisely ONE condition that qualifies as a genuine medical justification to remove the last joint, and that is a cancerous nail bed. When the body part being removed is *actually* the thing presenting the danger, that is one thing, but to justify declawing based on abnormal behaviors such as your examples leaves the door open for less ethical vets to justify declawing whenever ANY behavior is undesirable.
Yes declawing is an awful thing to do to a cat. I am the third owner of one of the victims of declawing. Kitty Bojangles was declawed by his first owner, then he was given to a friend of mine because the new boyfriend doesn't like cats. My friend had problems with the Bojangles not using the litter box, and was given Potty Pads... giving him permission to pee anywhere in the home, and he developed a bitting habit. My friend had to move and Bojangles had nowhere to go! My friend asked numerous friends if they would take him, but had no luck solely because he's declawed. I was Bojangles last hope, it was me or the kill shelter. I already have a house full, but couldn't let him die at a shelter because his claws are gone. I wish people would trim their cats nails instead of removing the whole nail(s). I actually have no respect for a person who declaws their cat, no matter what their reason is! I don't care if there's a Hemophiliac in the house, if a person can't accept a cat has claws... They should not be a cat owner.
You can cite as many statistics as you like and talk about it until you're blue in the face but the fact remains that veterinarians are selling their skill in amputating healthy toes, giving discounts and money off coupons to remove vital parts of cats paws and even offering to declaw tiny kittens that have hardly had time to learn what claws are for let alone use them destructively. How can anyone defend a cruel and brutal procedure that is banned in other countries because it is inhumane?
Dr. Gail Golab, what is your organization doing to ENSURE veterinarians are following the AVMA Position Statement on declawing? The answer is NOTHING! One reasons the city of West Hollywood banned declawing was because vets FAIL to adequately educate cat owners about the nature of this surgery, so cats need to be protected from such cruel and unethical behavior. ALL vets should be required to take the revised Veterinary Oath and start protecting animal welfare.
The AVMA & Canadian VMA are out of touch. The public WANTS veterinary professionals to promote improved animal welfare standards, not turn a blind eye to those who promote and cause pain and suffering.
"Through the years, we have seen many declawed cats surrendered to our shelter for behaviour issues that can be related to being declawed. Over the past two years, 75% of the declawed cats that were surrendered to us had behavioural problems. In that same time frame, only 4% of clawed cats were surrendered to us for the same behavioural reasons. I think those statistics speak for themselves. Studies show that declawing is a very painful procedure that can lead to long term issues .... both physical and emotional." From Cats Anonymous newsletter, http://www.catsanonymous.ca/Newsletter%20-%20May%2015%202010.pdf