Declawing… Ignorance is bliss!
by Maggie Sharp
(Hobart, Tasmania, Australia)
(Left) Mushu's declawed Paw and (right) Chilli's healthy clawed paw.
I've been doing some looking around on the internet. I've been looking for what it is that causes people and vets to declaw. Sure money and greed are involved, but the main thing, above all others, is mere ignorance!
I found one that made me laugh a bit. A lady found that the cat was swatting at her brat too much, who was only a baby. But I wonder if that lady ever stopped to think 'WHY is the cat swatting the baby?' I wonder how many times that baby pulled at the cat's tail, skin, ears and whiskers. And how many times the lady sat there giggling at the sight of her happy baby, and hurt cat.
For advice, someone told the lady to declaw the cat, even though it's "mean", or cut the claws really short. Because he will still be able to keep his balance with his back claws, and won't hurt the baby. Pure ignorance.
Now, this one will brake your heart. A child's parents made him have his cat laser declawed. The cat was constantly hiding under his bed, and she wouldn't come out. The vet gave him pain medication to give her, and the cat was actually opening her mouth for the medication. She was in that much pain! He talked about how much he loved his cat, and how much he hated seeing her in so much pain... Had the parents not been so ignorant, and actually educated themselves about declawing, I can guarantee that cat would not have been mutilated, and would not be destined to a crippled life.
Another person decided that they would attack everyone who is against declawing. By saying that his cats were declawed at 4 months old(!!!!!) and never seemed to be in pain, so surely declawing wasn't as bad as we say. Out of the 21 responses this person got, only 1 was in agreement, saying that declawing cats is a good thing. But only because her DVM vet told her so. This proves ignorance to me, because these people didn't even stop to consider that cats don't hide their pain, and didn't even consider to think that maybe cats were born with claws for a reason...
It makes my blood boil to see people like this, and I just wish people would go out of their way to LEARN about declawing prior to mutilating their cat for life!
Maggie
