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:
- Sometimes videos don’t work because of something that happened on YouTube. I can’t control that.
- 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.
Are there any vets in South Texas that has experience with the salvage procedure. Is there a web site that has vets who focus on this type of help?
Hi Mel. There is no website listing declaw salvage surgery vets. There are very few who do this. I would contact Dr Doub in Utah and see whether she can recommend someone. It sounds like poor advise but as I said declaw salvage surgery is a new idea and most vets do the opposite 😉
You can contact The Paw Project via their website Mel. Branches are starting to spring up in various cities as more vets are speaking out against declawing, I’m sure they will help you find a vet who repairs declawed cats paws.
http://www.pawproject.org/
Physical Consequences of Declawing – If you haven’t shared this yet, you really should. The vet who posted this info has given permission to share it if you provide a link back to the site (mostly info on site). Her name is Dr. Jean Hofve (rhymes with Bon Jovi). She’s in Colorado and supports efforts to ban declawing there and elsewhere.
Comparitive photos and x-rays between declawed cats and those with healthy paws. If you click on the first photo on her page, you will see more photos in the slide show than are displayed on the page. None are gross.
http://www.littlebigcat.com/declawing/physical-consequences-of-declawing/
Christine, I wrote this page about 3 years ago:
https://pictures-of-cats.org/complications-of-declawing.html
You are at the right place! There are over 150 pages on declawing on PoC. If you use the Google custom search box at the top of the page (just above the header to the article) you’ll find them.
Thanks for all your comments Christine. Most welcome.
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*.
*Using data crunched from http://www.Petfinder.com March 11, 2013.
Declawing is illegal in many other countries and needs to be prohibited in Canada and the USA too.
Photo of JJ, a cat who started biting after being declawed. He was such a danger to her 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.
This completely undermines the vet’s feeble argument that they declaw to save cat’s lives by preventing cat relinquishment. How cynical can vet’s be?
I’ll make this comment into an article, Christine.