Cat Declaw No More

I am very sorry to read your post and so sorry that you have had to part with your little cat, it must have been a terrible shock that your own son should present you with such an inhumane ultimatum and I can imagine how hurt and angry you must be at his treatment of you on top of your grief at losing your cat.
If it is any consolation the fact that you chose to rehome Doye even though you love and miss her so much shows how very much you value and respect her and how much you love her, so much so that you will deprive yourself of her rather than sentence her to a lifetime of pain and after effects of declawing.
I don’t want to upset your further by attacking your son but to be truthful he is a bigoted fool and if he and his girlfriend think that cats are dangerous to babies then they have an awful lot to learn, I’m only sorry that you and Doye are suffering through his, and her, ignorance.
How can anyone possibly not become emotionally attached to a cat? Cats don’t betray you like humans do, like your son did!

I hope Doye has a happy home wherever she is, please know that though you are hurting and grieving for her loss you did a wonderful thing in sacrificing her to save her precious toes.

SHAME ON YOUR SON, he doesn’t know much about declawed cats – they BITE MORE and use their litterbox less – so why would he want a declawed cat around a baby when bites are so much more infectious & dangerous than scratches? That is absolutely ludicrous and negligent as well – having a baby is NOT a reason to declaw a cat or a reason to relinquish them to a shelter! It’s shameful that they didn’t research the effects of declawing – if they had, you could still have your cat.

You did the RIGHT thing be re-homing your cat as painful as it is for you, you have spared her a world of pain & suffering. I’m sure you are hurting deeply right now & angry at your children – you have every right to be. But if you would have had her cruelly declawed, and your grandchild got bit, you would have had to take her to a shelter or have her euthanized afterward – you spared her this pain and possibly her life.

I live with a declawed cat from a shelter and I would never, ever allow him to be near kids – he is unpredictable and a liability because of the pain he is in from his arthritic crippled paws.

Please check out this article about the misconceptions of cats:
Misconception #5: A declawed cat is safer for a home with small children than one which has claws.

In fact, exactly the opposite is true. A declawed cat, feeling as though its first line of defense is missing, is much more likely to be a biter. Children often do things that may irritate a cat, such as pulling its ears or tail, and the animal’s natural reaction is to defend itself. A declawed cat does not have the option scratching the child as a deterrent so it is likely to bite first and ask questions later.

Unfortunately, while a scratch tends to be superficial and will heal easily, bits are puncture wounds and are serious injuries to anyone, especially a young child.

Expectant or new parents who declaw their cats in hopes that it will protect their children are actually exposing them to much more serious injuries. Children should be taught as early as possible how to appropriately interact with the family cat, minimizing the occasions on which the cat may need to defend itself.

Hello, I’m very sorry for you. I can’t beieve your son and his girlfriend could be so selfish as to give you that ultimatum.
Is there any way you could cope living alone now ? Or with someone else where you wouldn’t be deprived of your little buddy? I’d be moving out and bringing Doyle back home with me.
There is no reason to have a cat declawed when a baby comes along,in fact a declawed cat is a hazard to a baby or young child because of the litter box avoidance and the biting which result from the operation.
I’m sorry but your son sounds a very hard and immature person, of course you can’t help getting emotionally attached to a pet.You proved your love for Doyle by rehoming her rather than crippling her.
I fear for that baby’s future with those parents.
Take care and I do hope you are allowed to share their happiness with the baby, he/she is lucky to have such a caring gran.

I recently had to find a home for my 3 year old tabby. My son and his girlfriend will be bringing a baby into the house. I had to either have Doye declawed or find another home for her. She has been my best friend during some very trying times. It was the worst ultimatum ever presented to me. I couldn’t do it.
Fortunately there are no kill shelters and a volunteer responded to a voice mail I left and now she is elsewhere.
I am so sad for her. Wherever she is right now makes the fourth place in less than a year. Due to health reasons I had to leave where I lived for close to fifteen years and move in with my son. Then we had to move again. I hate change and I know that cats hate it even more.
All I know is that I miss Doye very much. She was always my little buddy. My son told me not to get so emotionally attached to my cat. Well, I am emotionally attached to my cat. And now I hurt.

We have permission to quote this written by a vet tech who we will not of course identify as she is in the precarious position of working for a clinic in which one vet declaws. She hates the procedure but feels she can do more good by ensuring the welfare of her patients by being there on the spot and she can also help educate people as to the cruelty of declawing.
She says:
‘Even with our supposedly superior methods of pain control, we still routinely have declawed cats tearing off their bandages and thrashing in pain upon awakening from the operation. It was the sheer amount of pain control medication that we give these cats that first clued me in to how truly odious this procedure is.
Typical pain control protocol for a declaw at the clinic where I work includes both pre- and post-operative injections, nerve-block injections in the paws, oral meloxicam to go home with, and the application of a transdermal fentanyl patch- this last of which is such a strong opiod-based painkiller that, when used in human medicine, I have heard it is typically only prescribed for the terminally ill’

This demonstrates just how much agony cats suffer from declawing and we already know that some vets not only declaw, but give clients the choice of pain medication by paying extra ! The thought of how many cats are suffering from this senseless abuse is heart breaking.

Well done Ruth, yet again your article has filled me with inspiration.

De-clawers always come up with the same sad excuses and yet again you’ve shown them up for exactly what they are.

I notice there are less and less de-clawers coming on PoC with their rubbish. They must know they can’t keep spouting their drivel; we’ve heard it all before.

How anyone can think for a minute that de-clawing a cat is ok for whatever reason really must be very stupid. Either that or they know exactly what they are doing and just don’t care.

If you are a de-clawer whichever category you fall into, you sicken me beyond belief.

I am ashamed to say I didn’t know any of this.
I have been reading PoC pages and am thoruoghly shocked.
What a very horrible thing to do to a cat.
I have signed your petition and will pass it on to everyone I know.
Thank you to everyone fighting to have this abuse of cats stopped.

Great,smashing,superb.
Pass this on everyone.I have.
Let us do like someone suggested and flood the internet with antideclaw stuff until the cat abusers have it coming out of their lugholes.

More good stuff man, I dont know how you think it all up.
I hope it gets to the low life who hurt cats this way and makes them STOP and THINK.
Ed
x

Thanks for your great comments Kath and Pammy.
Pammy is our friend being gradually ‘declawed’ who I wrote an article about a while ago.
She has 2 more toe nails removed next week so she speaks from experience ! Although as she says,
her declawing hasn’t crippled her or left her with a liftime of pain or problems as it does cats.

Congratulations on a superb poster Ruthy!
As others have already said…We are lucky to have you in our midst!
Do these ignorant people have young children de-clawed in case they scratch other children?
No! Of course they don’t! Their argument doesn’t stand up at all. If cats could talk, they would tell you in no uncertain way what they think of humans who declaw cats!How can anyone say they love their cat, then do this barbaric act on them?
If you don’t want furniture scratched..
DON’T HAVE A CAT.
In other words…think more carefully before you take on a cat. If you want a cat, then be prepared to love your cat honourably and properly.
Love your cat and look after it ..claws and all!

Another great write up Ruth.
I wish I could think up something new when I lie awake at night.
Do others get the cats of America and Canada on their minds and wonder what the hell we can do next?
What gets me is why aren’t more people over there doing something about it?
No disrespect to any USA citizens here as I know you are all completely anti abuse to cats,but I can’t understand why there isn’t a huge outcry about declawing from more people.
Will it ever end when there is so much lethargy?

Thanks everyone.It only took a couple of days to make the poster and write the article,in between other stuff. There’s never enough hours in a day.
I usually have the germ of the idea in the night if I can’t sleep and it buzzes round my head a few days until I write it up.
I always worry I’m not doing enough to help those cats, every day more are suffering and it feels hopeless at times as if it will never stop.
Which of course it won’t if we sit back and let it go on without trying to help.
Keep up the good work troops.
xx
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I like the different approach you’ve taken with this article. And, your poster is excellent, Ruth. Perhaps anti-declaw messages put forth in this more reader friendly way will connect with more people than the typical ‘you’re a bad person to declaw your cat’ approach that we all slip into at times.

Nice work!

and none that justify butchering an animals paw apart & robbing them of their essential body parts. GET EDUCATED PEOPLE!!!

Truly excellent.
It must have taken a lot of thought and hard graft doing that.
Kudos to Ruth.

Way to go Katt and it’s up on Google alerts already.
Something must surely penetrate the brains of those who don’t yet know that declawing is criminal.
I hope you get more signatures on your petition from this as well.
xx

I have to agree with you both,this is a brilliant article.
All those excuses used to cripple your cat and none of them hold any credibility.
I’m going to send this on to my pals in America in the hopes some of them will spread it around.
How many cats could something like this save from
being routinely declawed?
MILLIONS !!!!!!!!

OMG I agree with Babz,what an excellent poster.
How long did it take to think that up Ruth?
If I was in the USA right now I’d be printing off and putting up this and Ruth’s other posters every place I could.
We are very lucky to have such an inventive and persistant anti declaw advocate in our midst.
I’m going to pass this one far and wide,it deserves more than a couple of comments.

Another excellent piece of work that explodes all the cosy myths used to justify disfiguring cats for human benefit. This is excellent and has also been featured on the Claws Connection front page. It should be mandatory for every USA veterinary practitioner’s office to display this as a poster, oh no, how silly of me…a large percentage of those veterinarians actually suggest or encourage this outrageous desecration of cats healthy paws.