Every time the issue of declawing cats comes up, it creates a battlefield of posters. I cringe when I see people talking about the pets they have declawed, or wonder why that more of them shouldn't be declawed, and I have to feel this general anxiety come over me as a result. The last time it came up, I politely told them the whole truth about declawing.
The first thing people should know is how painful the procedure is to an animal. Look at a human hand. On the four fingers of the hand, excluding the thumb, there are two joints, separating the three parts of each finger. Now imagine someone chopped off the upper third of each of your fingers. Yeah, you'd be fine for the time you got pain meds, but then after that, you'd be missing a large part of your fingers, and many things which were once easy for you are now impossible. That's what declawing does--it cuts off one large portion of the "finger" of every animal to whom the procedure is done.
Now think about their litter box. Most cats are fastidious creatures, making their best effort to bury their waste so that it doesn't smell. But suddenly, they realize they are trying doubly hard to cover their waste products, and it HURTS! It would be like you trying to dig a hole in beach sand without that top joint on your fingers!
Okay, another issue: indoor cats get out sometimes. And without their claws, they cannot defend themselves. They will DIE if a dog attacks them, or really any animal that is better equipped than they are.
Declawed cats might not be able to scratch the furniture, but on another level they know that they can't defend themselves with no claws. So they bite!! And as many of us who work with rescue groups and other volunteers know, it's harder to place a biter than one with their claws intact.
Last time I was able to find some of the more prominent animal websites and the continuing dialog on this issue. And I have done the same here:
http://www.americanhumane.org/protecting-animals/adoption-pet-care/behavior-training/scratching-furniture.htmlhttp://www.humanesociety.org/animals/cats/facts/declawing.htmlhttp://www.aspcabehavior.org/articles/25/Destructive-Scratching.aspxhttp://www.sniksnak.com/cathealth/declaw.htmlYou can go to almost ANY respected animal website and you will see this information repeatedly, and with all those organizations so adamant about the procedure, it is hard to understand why anyone who loves animals would do such a horrible thing to an animal they profess they love. Love for a companion animal means that animals are LIFE long friends, and that means you have to be your pet's advocate. If you won't be, then who WILL be?
There are arguments people will post about why they want to declaw a pet, and a thousand reasons why they shouldn't. All these organizations will give counterpoints on the most shallow reasons people want to do it, and they're all logically, carefully thought out ones.
I have been involved with animals in one way or another all of my life. I have also seen and heard tragic and horrible things about many awful things. It is not for me, though, to try and convince someone who has already made the decision to declaw. Those people need to become far more aware of the facts before they have the procedure done.
When I was coming cross-country some years ago now, one of my beloved companions escaped from the van, and disappeared. I never saw him again, which made the rest of the trip almost completely unbearable. The one thing, though, was that he was about 16 lbs of pure muscle, and he was never declawed. Even though I had people searching for him, I knew it was almost next to impossible to find him, and I was convinced that he might have some sort of equal chance against an unknown predator. It didn't help my grief, but it was of some comfort to know that fact.
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