Don’t do DIY declawing. Don’t even begin to dream about it. Declawing is bad enough when carried out by a vet. Even they screw up, which compounds the immorality of such an unjustifiable process.
Gaskin
However, it appears that one idiot, Eric Felipe Gaskin, living in the District of Columbia was so driven to declaw his daughter’s two eight-week old kittens, Simba and Pumba that he decided to do it himself. Perhaps he thought he’d save a few bucks.
You have probably read about the outcome. He crushed and ruined the kittens’ paws because they struggled to get free and he continued. They couldn’t walk and the damage could not be repaired by emergency vets. They were euthanised. Let’s not dwell on the horror and sadness.
I have not learnt who reported him to the police. It would be interesting to know who did it – his wife?
Fortunately, he has convicted of animal cruelty (a felony – a serious crime) by a DC criminal court. His sentence included 180 days imprisonment and being banned from keeping pets for 3 years (no where near long enough, as far as I am concerned). He has to have a mental health assessment!
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This is surely the most grizzly example of:
- a total lack of empathy for animals. Treating them as objects;
- a total lack of thought about the pain he would cause. Gaskin is emotionally dead;
- a total abdication of his parental responsibilities by fatally injuring his daughter’s kittens and teaching her by example that it is acceptable to declaw and brutally mutilate cats;
Perhaps he has a drink problem? I have no idea. The reason why I suggest this is because it is unbelievable that a sane person could try and do what he did unless his mind was unbalanced. Or he was just so conditioned about treating animals as objects and so conditioned to believing that declawing was acceptable that he saw no problem in doing it.
In fact, he seems to be one of those individuals who believes that declawing is cutting off the claws. It is not, although that is bad enough. To anyone else who has the same misconceptions, this is what is removed…
Declawed cat’s bone and claws. Click on the picture to go to a post. This picture is protected by copyright.
I suppose we won’t know the outcome of his mental health assessment. However, the fact that he was tried for animal cruelty and the judge also sentenced him to:
- attend a parenting skills group and
- 40 hours community service,
..indicates that he is not deranged. Accordingly, I have to conclude that Gaskin is a evil monster who should be banned from keeping animals for the remainder of his life. Oh..and maybe someone should take a Stanley knife to his fingers.
What no one knows is that Mr. Gaskin purchased the 2 kittens from convicted animal abusers on Craigslist & the Humane Society Control officer was aware of this fact but chose 2 bury it.
Thanks for that Derek. Shocking. I just did a short post on Craigslist’s pet advertising policy, which I think does not prevent abuses.
That really is terrible!
I get scared when I hear what depravity the human race will sink to with regards animal cruelty I get even more scared when I think of what horrors animals go through behind closed doors that no one ever finds out about 🙁 I despise this creature he is evil when I think of those babies struggling and him carrying on with his vile, evil deed I could cry but look at his smug face don’t you think that some people really feel they have the right to do whatever they choose to whom or whatever they choose to do it to?
He should be made to know the pain he put those kittens through he should be made to feel the same terror en eye for an eye.
I have the same fears. I am sure that the criminality that we hear about in the home is only the tip of the iceberg. In this case, his sister shopped him. However, in nearly every act of cat cruelty behind closed doors, the perpetrator gets away with it for any number of reasons.
I could hardly bear to read about this awful cruelty or bear to look at the pictures and I can’t even begin to imagine what sort of monster would try to declaw tiny kittens paws himself, bad enough paying a vet to do it but at the very least they give anaesthetic and sometimes pain relief. I hate everything about declawing, from the stupid inaccurate name to the smug people who write about how wonderful it is to have clawless “kitties” on online forums, I’m glad his sister laid him in to the police, I wish he’d got a harsher sentence though, one that meant he was crippled in an excruciating way and then put to “sleep”
Gaskin does have a criminal record for domestic violence. Maybe it is a good thing these poor kittens are gone. One can only imagine what this POS would have done to them over time.
<<< domestic violence charges in video
There are a lot of people like Gaskin. And I wonder how many cats go through hell behind closed doors. It takes someone to inform the police. Most people won’t.
I hate more than anything the fact that it was invented. Who on earth could even consider that. Same goes for debarking. This is for people who want a teddy bear, not an animal. Look at this guy though. Seriously. I’m glad he got jailed and I hope he has a criminal record for the rest of his life. I don’t understand the ‘no animal for 3 years’ thing. It seems kind of pointless. It should be no animal at all for 15 years or forever. But do they really enforce that. Do they check up on it. I doubt they can stop him having a cat if he wants one. He can just keep in inside – they would need a warrant, etc etc. Maybe he didn’t know it was wrong and then took them to the vet when it didn’t go so well and effectively reported himself. There are some incredibly stupid ignorant people in the world. There are people out there who don’t know cruelty from a joke. Personally I believe that if you give people too much space then they never learn to coexist with other people around them because they anyway don’t even have to. People who are set in their ways and ignorant don’t learn the basics and they don’t progress with the rest of humanity. Most important is a good education system that reaches all, not just a small percentage. For as long as you don’t have that, you will have people like this who look like they stepped out of the medieval ages. People who are aggressive, people who are macho. I would say machismo is one of the most powerful forces that work against progression. If you drop out of school and hang out with the guys and act really tough, there are places in the world where that will actually mean something and get you somewhere (stupid). Without education you get tough guys and street culture in it’s most negative form – and you get idiots like this guy who torture kittens because it’s a cheap way to do something considered acceptable if done by a vet. I bet the small percentage of people who vote pro declaw are the ones who eat in McDonalds and like mainstream fashion and don’t really care to debate because they anyway can’t think longer than a string of 2 sentences because they watch so much television their brain doesn’t work properly anymore. This guy in the picture above doesn’t care how much petrol he uses, he doesn’t care about people dying in other countries. He doesn’t care about what he eats as long as it tastes good. He cares about the rims on his truck and being able to give his inbred daughter an ice cream whenever she asks for one like a gud daddy shud. I bet he has more than one child. He doesn’t care if tigers become exctinct even if he thinks they might be cool cuz they are tough and stuff. I bet the only thing he cares about is whether **latin american country here** wins the world cup and that he will always be able to continue stuffing his overwieght daughter full of ice cream. Ignorance is a disease and the symptom is evil stupidity. Whether or not it’s anyone’s fault doesn’t make it ok.
It’s a horrifying thought what he did. To him cats must be objects otherwise he would not be able to do it. Ironic that he did it for his daughter who is probably the apple ‘in’ his eye. Let hope he doesn’t procreate anymore. With any luck he will die of a heart attack from eating so many burgers. Is it me or does he sort of look like a burger?
Only ignorant or heartless people want a cat declawed, the ones who shouldn’t be allowed within ten miles of any cat.
Cats come with claws because they need them, anyone with a grain of sense knows and accepts that, I’m sick of hearing the same old cry
‘I didn’t know declawing was more than just the claws’ Why didn’t they know? Because they didn’t bother to find out, that’s why! They took the easy and selfish way out instead of providing a scratching post for their cat.
It’s outrageous that so many vets will do this surgery, even promote it, the only reason being to make more money for themselves.
I think if declawing was banned only the true cat lovers would have cats in their home, yes there are already not enough homes and too many cats in shelters being killed, but a lot of those are declawed and unadoptable because of mental or physical problems from the surgery!
I feel as angry about it today as I did 5 years ago when I first discovered declawing was almost routine in the USA and I will be battling on alongside the Americans who know it’s wrong, until the day we get it banned!
Yes Marc he looks like a filthy disgusting burger to me too, a flesh filled one, not a veggie one of course!
Ruth; It appears Gaskin’s sister called the Humane Society. Those kittens didn’t even look old enough to be weaned.
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/09/eric-gaskin-charged-with-animal-cruelty-accused-of-declawing-8-week-old-kittens-79956.html
Thank you for that information.
Good on his sister,I’m sorry for her having such a cruel horrible brother!
After seeing a LOT of dead bodies in my day, one would think you would get use to cruelty. Not so! While I was fairly well desensitized to seeing dead human bodies in all manner of postmortem conditions, the same never held true when it came to animals.
I knew I shouldn’t have looked at the picture of the claws. I felt a rage starting to well up in me. Really, I would love to take these a$$holes and give them 180 days of the same torture they inflicted. A few bamboo shoots under the nails, tightening a vice on the family jewels or just hold them down and pull their nails out? Even more sad, he did this in front of his daughter. He probably abuses her as well. What a sick bastard.Maybe someone will take care of him in jail.
Jail may sort him out. However, inmates usually beat up pedophiles. Animals aren’t worth at lot to prisoners.
I think animal abusers in UK prisons get what they deserve from other inmates once word gets around what they’ve done.
I felt sick when I first read about this monster’s cruelty, I can’t bear even now to think about how those kittens must have suffered and struggled to get away from him while he was mangling their toes and breaking their fragile bones.
The pictures i saw of the crippled kittens haunt me!
So I was glad to see he’s been convicted now, but his punishment isn’t anywhere near what he deserves, he should have his finger and toe nails pulled out and his bones crushed, without any anaesthetic, it would be my pleasure to do just that to him! There would be no end to his pain as unfortunately killing even monsters like him isn’t allowed.
I’ve read some idiots arguments in the past that if declawing was banned some people would try DIY, that is ridiculous, that scumbag has done DIY anyway, he had obviously heard that some vets do it, so thought in his pea brain why shouldn’t he do it and save some money. Declawing is the wrong word for this legalised abuse, it gives the totally wrong idea to idiots who think it’s ‘only’ the claws removed. If it was banned everyone would realise it is major surgery and just how cruel it is.
Declawing should NEVER have been invented and it should be banned worldwide, yes vets anaesthetise kittens to declaw them but they wake up to pain and shock and disablement, they know those facts full well too!