My name is Cassandra Cat, I have been front declawed ten years ago. My previous owners dumped me into the woods because I started to bite them. My paws have nerve damage and are always numb. I shake them all the time. I wake up from my naps because I hiss and growl in my sleep. I have nightmares all the time, flashbacks of my declawing.
A veterinarian who does not declaw cannot examine my paws unless they medicate me, I may have bone fragments in my paws from a botched declaw. The veterinarian said she did not want to put me through medication, X-rays, possible correction surgery because it would traumatize me further. She used to declaw many years ago and stopped. I take herbal medications daily for my mental instability and pain. I will never forget laying on the operating table while each of my toes were being amputated. I heard the snap, and saw my claws on the table next to me.
It was the most horrible experience, I cried and cried and no one heard me. Did I tell you there is NOT a strong enough medication in the entire WORLD that can quench the pain of having bone amputated? I bite my new owner, she cannot pet me or brush me. She can give me a bath, the warm spray from the shower head feels good on my arthritic back; declawed cats walk unnaturally as the entire skeletal system is out of whack and causes arthritis. Try walking without much needed toes, cats walk on their toes. I am extremely heartbroken humans have done this to me. I cannot knead, climb, hunt, and I never purr.
Declawing is a major orthopedic operation, it is amputation of the third distal phalanx toe bone and was marketed by the American Veterinary Medical Association in 1952 (see image); using furniture/skin as a selling tool because veterinarians needed extra cash to pay off their huge college loans.
Declawing does not benefit a cat, there are no pros, only cons, do the research. The pros of declawing are for veterinarians only, as I have mentioned. Most veterinarians who declaw train their receptionists to promote declawing with the spay/neuter, have discount coupons, never explain the long term detrimental side effects, have expensive lasers to pay for.
A declawing can go up to $900, it depends on how good the veterinarian is with marketing. Or it can go as low as $100, it depends on what back alley discount spay/neuter butcher shop is used. Most pet parents, once they learn what onychectomy REALLY is and who are not lied to about the procedure, will refuse to declaw.
Some pet parents are lied to and told declawing is a simple surgery, the pain goes away after several days. No More Excuses! Do your own research! That’s what the Internet is for, a vast library full of scientific information about the procedure!
Declawed cats pee seven times more often outside litter box than non-declawed cats
Read the NEW peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery-Pain and Adverse Behavior in Declawed Cats 6/2017, Google it (the article above refers to it). It was done by ethical veterinarians who do not declaw (The Paw Project) and you WILL NOT find this study in the AVMA’s journals because they want to continue to have their veterinarian members declaw to pay off their college debts.
The American Veterinary Medical Association @AVMAVets, American Animal Hospital Association @AAHAHealthypet and American Association of Feline Practitioners @CatVets all do nothing to stop declawing, their declaw ‘policies’ are useless. They could care less their animal abusing members cash in on claws. The AVMA promotes declawing at their ‘accredited’ colleges, they hold declaw wet-labs around the country, and the other two associations mentioned participate.
I will say there ARE ethical veterinarians who do not declaw that belong to one or all of the above. I give the Paw Project an honorable mention, they have banned declawing in eight California cities and their members perform paw-repair surgery on deformed and mutilated declawed paws which their ‘colleagues’ declawed.
A NOTE TO VETERINARIANS: Who promote declawing with coupons, discounts, and verbally: You should have your fingers axed and be prosecuted to the fullest in a court of law, then in prison for LIFE for animal abuse. You declaw 5,000 cats a day and never blink an eye, sick psychopaths. Monsters.
AVMA/AAHA/AAFP: Why do you exist? You are nothing but greedy blood sucking corporations that use your members for their dues only, you give them nothing back.
AVMA is always pushing for more veterinarians when the market is already over-loaded, there is a vet on every street corner, like McDonalds, most are in debt and use declawing as another income source because they are in competition with each other.
4,000 vets graduate yearly and are forced to join corporate hospitals and are forced to declaw to meet the monthly quota OR they are out of a job. So, I wonder WHY THE DEPRESSION in the veterinary field is so high.
Stop using cyber-bullying when people speak up about declawing, COWARDS. Cowards harm innocent, once healthy animals.
How do you sleep at night? I hope your dreams, from this day forward, are nightmares with cat’s scratching out your eyes continuously. See how YOU LIKE having nightmares every night like I do.
Click this link to go to Cassandra Cat’s website.
Thank you very much for an excellent page about the AVMA’s unethical acceptance of this brutal, money making veterinary operation which should never have come into existence.