By Christine Harris
JJ was a cat who started biting after being declawed. He was such a danger to the owner’s kids that the woman had to either rehome him or euthanize him. My brother took him in. The cat bit my mom while she was visiting. She told him to “shoo!” and waved her hand to scare him away from the door. Within a day or so she required IV antibiotics in the emergency department because the bite was deep and appeared infected.
JJ started having more issues when my brother took in another cat who’d been abandoned. When my brother found he was travelling too much and didn’t have anyone to look after his cats, we took JJ in and had to keep him separate from other cats.
We rehomed JJ with my aunt who’s kids were grown. When he was covered with a blanket, JJ bit her grandson who’d been warned to leave the kitty alone. JJ lived with her for several years until he died of old age.
JJ’s original owner could have saved money by not declawing him. He might have been able to stay in his original home and not cost taxpayers money for biting my mom if he’d never been declawed in the first place. This issue is also one of consumer protection, public health, reducing costs as well as ethical concerns and accountability of the veterinary industry in North America.
All homeless cats deserve to get adopted, but did you know that declawing reduces possible homes for cats waiting to be adopted? 14.5% of adoptable declawed cats were listed as NOT suitable for homes with young children vs. 8.64% of non declawed cats (ref: using data crunched from http://www.Petfinder.com March 11, 2013). Some are abandoned.
Thanks for telling this story, Caroline. Poor JJ, mutilated and then handed over from one person to another. At least he stayed within the family. A lot of other families would have seen him as unmanageable instead of the victim that he was.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the original cruel owners didn’t consider having his teeth extracted. There’s no doubt in my mind that they would have been able to find a vet who would do it.
You’re so right about this act. It caused so much stress and expense.
This is another very sad story – poor little JJ – he looks awfully sweet – I can’t stand to look at his paws – they look so stunted.
It would be very hard to keep ones balance let alone walk with our toes half cut off.
I blame the vets more than the owners. I blame the owners for having no common sense but I blame the vets (who declaw) as the lowest of the low and some.
Poor JJ, I can clearly see his stumpy paws and it’s very sad that he is only one of many cats with a similar story. He was lucky to be adopted by your understanding family but he wasn’t lucky in that he was deliberately crippled for life, it must break your heart Christine seeing this happening all the time.
Yes we MUST get declawing banned in Canada and the USA and I admire your dedication to educating about the cruelty of it and your aim to get such cruel surgery stopped!
What a sad story, JJ’s life ruined by his first owner who having mutilated his paws then passed him on for someone else to deal with his problems or kill him. The bit of luck JJ had was being taken in by your brother and remaining within your family for the rest of his life, many thousands of declawed cats never have any luck and either die out on the streets or in “shelters”, it’s heart breaking and it’s disgusting that declawing is still allowed to happen, as Jo says declawing MUST be banned in the USA and Canada, if people haven’t got the decency to stop doing it by choice then they must be stopped from doing it by law.
Thanks Christine for this blog. We must get declawing banned in the USA and Canada. So many cats have lost their homes- too many vets claim that declawing preserves homes… making client think they are doing the right thing. What a disservice this is…
Some vets give other vets a bad name. Infact the more one learns about cats the more one starts to have serious issues with the general vet practices. There are many great vets still though but the ones who declaw for example, give them all a bad name in some sense.
Declawing is actually evil. For the simple reason that it is for human ‘convenience’. That is what makes it so intolerable.
Stupidity can be costly. Where do these people get the idea from that de-clawing cats is OK? Never heard of anyone de-clawing dogs but a stray dog did more damage in a month on my property than my cats did in 4 years.
A form of racial discrimination.