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.
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!
Comment
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…
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.
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!
Good on his sister,I’m sorry for her having such a cruel horrible brother!
I think animal abusers in UK prisons get what they deserve from other inmates once word gets around what they’ve done.
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”
Thank you for that information.
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.