Well I'm not too fond of breaking my cat's knuckles so it can't scratch up stuff, seems kinda irrational you know.

>>267
>breaking the knuckle

tell that vet he shouldn't be drunk during surgery!

I consider it pointless mutilation. I'd rather see someone give the animal up for adoption than declaw it, inside cat or no. There are plenty of non-surgical alternatives, like claw-caps, scratch pads, or just plain clipping them. I view people who do anything like this as lazy at best, and sadistic at worst.

having helped perform a declawing as part of a vet summer camp, I would never have it done to any cat. Its pretty brutal just by itself but its also really easy to screw up and leave the poor creature walkig with a limp the rest of its life.

>>267
Unless you're in the Mafia :3



Really though, there's so many alternatives that it's like an earlier poster said. It's just plain lazy. I rarely clipped my cat's claws and he stuck to his cat tree and emery cat. (and the inside of the couch... He found a flap in the back to get inside and scratch it inside there. Didn't care. xD )

I will also note that tendonectomies can go pretty bad too. 2 kitties I've had were done before I had them. One functioned fine, he'd chew off the outer layers but he did seem annoyed that he couldn't scratch (looked frustrated when he tried and couldn't). The girl, however, didn't chew them and obviously couldn't scratch. So the nail would get thick rather fast and even with weekly nail clipping, the nail could get so thick it was hard to cut without painful splintering. At worst, if I forgot for a couple weeks, the nail would sometimes grow in a thick nailed curve back into the paw pad directly under the nail. Once, this was happening and she landed on it bad when she jumped off the desk. Had to pull the pieces out with tweezers... Not fun for anyone involved. She also did the frustrated scratch (paw at the arm of the couch, look all sad and annoyed)

My family sometimes declaws our indoor cats, depending on the individual cat and how they use their claws.

I adopted one of my cats, Wilbur, from a shelter because he was very friendly. He got along with my other cat just fine, but he was very destructive. He'd had a stroke when he was a kitten which screwed up his sense of balance and depth perception, but that didn't stop him from trying to jump around like a normal cat. Whenever he fell short of something, be it a person's lap or the back of the couch, he would sink his claws in and climb on anyways. This was very frustrating, as you can imagine, because he would tear into everything trying to hang onto stuff. My legs were regularly covered in deep scratches and he tore apart some expensive curtains trying to jump onto a window sill.

He hates being held and is one of the strongest cats I've ever owned, and as a result I could never hold him still long enough to put nail caps on him or even trim his nails. After he ripped apart one of my antique silk paintings, I decided he needed to be declawed.

I am satisfied with the results, and Wilbur gradually regained his sense of balance and can now jump onto things without destroying them. I think I made the right decision.