Almost Forty Percent of Declawed Cats Have Issues Walking


Paw Project

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats
If you understand the declawing of cats it makes sense but if you don’t you’d have difficulty in believing it but 38% of declawed cats have issues with their walking. Yes, the way declawed cats walk is affected for life and it affects their mobility and levels of contentment too. Wouldn’t you be pissed off if both your feet were missing part of their toes?

The Paw Project study concluded that for 38% of declawed cats, the declawing affected their posture and caused “extreme lethargy”. While for others, moving was so painful they wouldn’t move at all and for some it demotivated them from walking around and exploring a new environment.

The Paw Project says that the figure of 38% excluded cats who have modified their gait dramatically and decided to take the pressure off their toes by walking on their wrists.

The Paw Project states:

“This 38% of cats only comprises those that are EXTREMELY abnormal in their gate OR their inability to move. This means that 38% of declawed cats need some form of chronic pain medication other than typical OTC joint supplements to make them comfortable enough to want to walk and move around.”

I hope cat owners who support declawing read and comprehend this. It will really be a revelation to some who believe what their declawing veterinarian says. Don’t listen to him/her – some deliberately mislead clients. Follow your heart if you love cats and campaign against this barbaric operation that should never have happened and which should have been consigned to history years ago.

Things are changing slowly. The Nova Scotia Veterinary Medical Association decided it is OK to declaw but there is a hint of a change in opinion amongst vets. It will take time.

More to come on the how declawing affect self-grooming.

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7 thoughts on “Almost Forty Percent of Declawed Cats Have Issues Walking”

  1. My mother in law’s cat is declawed, and he does have an altered gait from being mutilated. It’s very visible. He walks on the heels of his front paws, and can’t run worth a darn. He’s an older cat as well, and has the “hammer toe” of the older declawed cat. He is also the most timid and withdrawn cat I’ve ever seen. He wasn’t like that as a kitten before he was declawed. Of course, the butcher vet didn’t suggest any alternatives to the declawing either. I told my inlaws what declawing is all about, what is done, and the later effects, and I told them that they should have called me before the mutilation occurred. The cat was done at the same time he was neutered. I wish they had just had him neutered only, and he would have been a great cat instead of the pitiful creature he is now, and has been since having been mutilated.

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    • Thanks for telling us Jan. It is terrible to hear this. So sad. A life ruined for the convenience of the owner. Horrible and it makes me mad.

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  2. Ruth, RIGHT ON!

    Follow the money,honey.. That is what drives this brutal surgery to continue here in the USA. Makes me SICK. Compassionate and knowledgable vets can sell scratching posts and high end cat furniture instead and make as much moolah- and educate their clients HOW to use them, and that declawing cats is unacceptable.

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  3. With so much evidence now of how declawing affects cats I don’t see how it can go on much longer, it’s being scientifically proved abuse of cats.
    Even if a declawed cat seems perfectly alright, there is no way he can be, with part of his paws missing.
    It’s horrible to think that every day, kittens are being deprived of their right to live life as a cat, WITH claws.

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    • Even if a declawed cat seems perfectly alright

      I am sure a lot cat owners don’t recognise the walking problems. They can probably be quite subtle.

      It is shocking this study. Quite horrific. To think that vets did this damage! We are looking at 8 million cats in the USA or more who can’t walk properly because of what vets did. It is mass criminality on a scale never seen before in the history of mankind.

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  4. I adopted a 6 year old cat from a No KIll Shelter in NY many years ago and she was declawed but she never had a problem with her walking. I can see why many would though. I wish people undertood how bad it is to do that. No one’s furniture is more important than a cats paw ( joint ) If one puts many scratches of different kinds around the house cats will use them. Smear cat nip on them at first and believe me they will be used. All my cats through the years were not declawed except the one i adopted and not one of them destroyed my furniture.

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    • Thanks Ru. I am pleased your cat was one of the 62% but there is also the issue of detecting walking problems. I wonder how many cats hide their walking problems with minor compensations that we don’t notice. I don’t know. Perhaps none but I doubt it.

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