Declaw Salvage Surgery

Declaw salvage surgery occurs when a vet repairs the damage done to a cat by the declaw surgery of another vet² which usually entails the removal of the last phalange of each of the ten toes of the forepaws of the cat. The world’s best known veterinarian who does declaw salvage surgery is Dr. Jennifer Conrad of the Paw Project. She is an expert in salvage surgery on large declawed wild cats as well as domestic cats.

Vets do the declawing operation (onychectomy) very quickly. We don’t know how many of the operations are done well or badly. No one is keeping records. Someone should. In my opinion, all the operations are bad because the operation should not be done in the first place. Some of these operations are doubly bad because the veterinary surgeon screws up. And you know, if a vet screws up once, you can bet your bottom dollar he screws up over and over again, turning out disabled cats like this one (Trinity) in the video below:

This is the same cat after the declaw salvage surgery:

You want to know how botched and bad the operation can be? Click on this link and be flabergasted…

I like the terminology “declaw salvage surgery”. It is the first time I have read it. It is very descriptive. A vet doing post-declaw repair work is salvaging what is left of the disabled cat. The cat will never be the same as a cat with claws but the repair work at least removes the pain and gives the cat back a bit of that part of her life that she lost when a declaw vet amputated the tips of ten of her toes.

I think the vet who did the declaw salvage surgery on Trinity is Letrisa Miller DVM.

There is a substantial risk of complications after declawing surgery. There is always tons of pain and piles of strong painkillers after the surgery and that is putting to one side all the other stuff like psychological damage which vets don’t understand.

Please don’t declaw your cat. The are many alternatives all of which are a million times better.

Search result for “declawing” on PoC.

Notes:

1. Sometimes videos don’t work because of something that happened on YouTube. I can’t control that.
2. I suppose the same vet could repair the botch he made but I suspect it is usually a different vet who does the repair work.