I would rather cut off the tips of my fingers than cut off my penis, any day. No question.

I’ve had several cats in my life, and I’ve loved them all. I have also had all of them declawed. None of them suffered any of these so called psychological side effects you all claim they experience. I did notice a significant difference in their personalities once I got them neutered though. Neutering, declawing and euthanasia, are all unfortunate side effects of pet ownership. Cats are not humans, quit pretending they are.

Artemis I agree with you. When vet nursing we didn’t castrate many male dogs as male dogs are much easier controlled than male cats for wandering and therefore don’t get into fights or lost and don’t have the terrible urine smell sexually mature entire male cats do. The dogs we did castrate were usually over sexed and making a nuiscance of themselves and that’s why we were asked to do it.
Over the many years I worked for vets, more people started having female dogs spayed and as they did, then we had less of them brought in for an urgent operation for pyometra (pus in the womb) Because most female cats were spayed we rarely saw a cat with pyometra.
So healthwise I think it’s more important that female dogs are neutered than it is males.
We’d never neuter a female dog( I hate the word bitch) until after her first season or neuter a cat until he/she was at least 5/6 months old. Now it seems some vets recommend them to be neutered as young as 8 weeks which worries me a bit as I haven’t seen proof that neutering very young doesn’t affect animals in later life.
However things have moved on a lot since I retired. For example some people now say spay or neuter, when neuter actually means the same thing, to de-sex, that is spay a female, castrate a male. We’d actually book the cat in as ‘to be neutered’ therefore ensuring two people checked the cat’s sex before the op as it was known for some inexperienced vets to open up a cat only to find he was male,not female.
It does seem wrong that we have the power over animals to do this to them without their consent but as I said before, neutering is for the animal’s own sake and health whereas convenience declawing is never ever that.

Declawing is wrong definatly, I have mixed feelings about spaying and neutering and will try to state my case as calmly as possible; I would not spay/neuter my dogs, as they would be under my control 24/7. HOWEVER, I will most likely spay/neuter my cats becuase they will be indoor/outdoor cats and I will have only 50% control of them so I suppose I might as well take extra precuations BUT I will not spay/neuter them really early (I’ll wait till about a year old). Really I suppose I just don’t like the way its advertized; They make it sound like EVERY dog thats not neuterd will be agressive, and that EVERY dog will develope those cancers and other problems when in fact, they are very very rare and are most likely developed only when they are kept in poor condition, and that you are ONLY responsible if you neuter your animal, when in all honesty, What is respponsible? The neutering of a dog then allowing him to do whatever he so pleases? letting him roam around, jump on people, possibly bite someone? OR what comes from proper control and training? Actually neutering a giant breed dog too early CAN cuase problems with their joints and developement, which is why its best to wait at least 2 years. I also beleive that it depends on the person and their enviroment, If you won’t invest the time to properly train your dog, then PLEASE get it altered so at least the world won’t have to pay for some of your stupidity (if you are too busy to do so, then you shouldn’t even get a dog in the first place) especially if you live in an area with lots of strays! If you WILL invest the time and energy to train your dog, then its up to you and your current living enviroment.

So there you have it, My opinion.

Poochu, I know it seems wrong to neuter any animal against their will. But the problem is that if we didn’t neuter cats we would be over run with them and there are enough homeless already.
When they lived in their natural state in the wild,Mother Nature took care of there being too many, by survival of the fittest and I’d think they didn’t breed as much as well fed domesticated cats do.
Health problems can arise from both sexes of cats which are not neutered.
Spaying a female cat takes away the uterus so she doesn’t continually come into season and want to mate.A cat in season is unhappy and frustrated. Mating produces litter after litter of kittens from being a kitten herself until she’s old, if she survives that is, as this gradually wears her out. Continually coming into season and not mating means that eventually her uterus will suffer and she will become ill with pus in her womb or even cancer.
Castrating a tom cat takes away the desire to mate and to fight other tom cats.I’m sure you know that toms travel miles to find a mate and many are killed or injured.
A vasectomy doesn’t take away the desire as far as I know,well it doesn’t in people anyway.
So neutering really is for the benefit and health of cats and yes for their caretakers benefit too.
Whereas declawing is never for the benefit of cats, only their caretakers.

Declawing is a strict “NO”, and as I have already said “a Crime against Mother Nature”.

1) Imagine a foster parent chopping off their Kids fingers, because they pick their nose.

2) Imagine a Dictator ordering Castration of Male Prisoner of War, to employ them as Harem guard.

3) Imagine a dictat for publicly beheading a Human for not abiding with a Cult’s Ideology.

These situations are not a “Figment of my Imagination”,but “Bitter Truths” we see and hear everyday on our Earth.

Declawing a Cat is inhuman and not a solution but a problem created by Cat-enslavers.

Castration is a subject which makes me “shiver down there” and I better not talk about it here.

Let the humane method of vasectomy and tubal ligation be employed if the inevitable “neutering” is to be done.

I suppose if your child was being distructive in anyway, you would not hesitate to saw his or her fingers off, would you? It’s the same with cats… How can you say that neutering is bad, is there actually something wrong with you? Seek help… Millions of cats are murdered every year due to lack of neutering and declawing.

I would rather saw my fingers off with a blunt bread-and-butter knife, than even considering lowering myself to being a cruel worthless being who would declaw a cat.

Read this, it’s based on fact. Click on part 1, and read on from there. This happens to cats every day because if sick ignorant people like you.

https://pictures-of-cats.org/sebastians-diary-part-7-the-last-part.html

Now Johnathan listen up; what particulary are we supposed to be forcing on our animals thats worse than de-clawing? Pray educate me because at the moment I can’t think of anything worse than paying someone to cut my cats toes off.

When I heard of de-clawing I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and since I first heard I’ve heard and seen some horrific stuff. I’ve heard of day old kittens being de-clawed because some ‘thing’ decided to experiment to find the best age for de-clawing. Their mom ate them afterwards.

I’ve heard of dogs getting into someones house and ripping apart their defenceless de-clawed cat, a cat screaming out in pain as each toe is hacked off even under anaesthetic. I’ve heard of a cat throwing itself around its cage after being de-clawed and trying to bite its bandages off.

Here is one of the most upsetting pictures I’ve ever seen. Take a look. See the horror on the cats faces? This is how your cats would have looked.
https://pictures-of-cats.org/recently-declawed-cat-pictures.html

Amputating a cats toes is cruel and barbaric. Face it, its you who is the hypocrite. If you can read our comments and look at those pictures and still think that what you did is acceptable then you’re even more of a unfeeling, misguided moron than I first thought.

To Jonathan; Your comment that you “don’t see much difference between neutering and declawing” shows you know precisely sweet F.A. about feline anatomy.

Cats are digitgrade which means they walk on the tips of their toes. This is the same joint that vets amputate when they declaw. Not only is it an excruciatlingly painful surgery, but the cat is then forced to walk in an unnatural manner and this shift in body weight causes suffering and extra wear and tear on the joints. Since they need their claws to exercise their upper body muscles by pulling back against their own clawhold, you have now made sure that they will suffer muscle wastage too. Declawing has NO benefits whatsoever to the cat and thats why vets in the majority of the civilised world refuse to do it.

Neutering removes the reproductive organs, which reduces or eliminates the risk of them developing certain cancers and is guaranteed to increase their life span.

“now neither of them appears an worse off” doesn’t wash with me either. Cats are very stoic creatures and will always try to hide their pain because insinct tells them it would make them vulnerable to rivals or predators

Perhaps you’re not aware of it, but it’s only in certain areas of North America that people prefer to “imprison” their cats indoors 24/7. For those of us in European countries, the vast majority of cats enjoy an indoor-outdoor lifestyle and most of them make it to their late teens or early twenties. In the UK we have feral cats on record as old as 28 – so it will be interesting to see how long your cats live. Though with the unecessary pain and suffering you have inflicted upon them, I guess every single day must seem like a lifetime to them.

Do cats everywhere a favour and don’t adopt any more. Leave that to people who genuinely care about their welfare and happiness.

From your own pen

“Relations with human family members and my leg was more important than principle or the cat’s claws”

What principle?
It soon went out the window didn’t it?
That very important leg!You’d better insure it for a large sum of money if it’s so much more important than the welfare of two cats who had the misfortune to fall into your hands.
Your human family members obviously have the same principle as you that they agreed with you to have your cats mutilated.
It sounds like you only have principles until it suits you to disgard them.
You were against declawing at one time so you do know how cruel it is but you have the nerve to call the good people here hypocrites.

Do us a favour and crawl back under the stone you came from.

Well having read your post jonathamn I want to throw stones AT YOU! I have never met a bigger hypocrit in my long, varied and colourful life as you who says he is against declawing then the minute your precious skin gets scratched it’s off with not only the offending claws but off with innocent claws as well!! You make me ill, your selfishness knows no bounds.
You don’t appreciate the difference between procedures that benefit cats and procedures which cripple cats and you seem to think that all a cat needs in life is warmth, food, sleep and company. Well they need more, they need respect, care and compassion and paying a pimp to hack their toes off doesn’t demonstrate any of this to me!!
Keep crying because you have commited a grave sin against both of your cats, you great snivelling useless yellow lump, scared of cats claws. Shame on you! I hope you get footrot and your toe ends drop off!!!!!!!

You “relented” and had your cats declawed instead of giving them up.
What a tradgedy you “relented” because those cats would have been far better off with someone else who understands that cats come with claws because they are essential to them.

Jonathan if you’ve read the previous comments on this page and all the other declaw pages here and even now think you did the right thing crippling your two cats then you are deluding yourself.

YOU had days of tears but your cats had days of pain shock and bewilderment because you paid someone to do that to them and since then face allsorts of unspeakable things happening to them.

I can’t believe you can come here and call us hypocrites when you are the biggest one of all.

Roll on the day declawing is banned so that people like you either live with cats with claws or no cats.

I’ve got news for you,you are the hypocrite,not us!
You say you were against declawing so you must have known it is wrong.You chose to have 2 cats disabled because one scratched stuff including your leg…poor diddums is your leg so precious?
You compounded your cruelty by having the other cat disabled also.Go on with your excuse that they were litter mates and the clawed one might have hurt the clawless one.That’s a tired excuse and NOT SO….clawed cats realise declawed cats are disabled and treat them as disabled.
So both cats went through agony,have you seen those pictures on PoC of newly declawed cats,the pain and shock plain to see and the blood everywhere?
Take a look Jonathan,see what they went through.
I pray for their sake they have no repercussions in the future apart from the arhritis which is almost 100% certain to strike them.
But not for your sake as you deserve to have a lifetime of tears for what you did.

Oh Jonathon, you are SO wrong !
For a start you say your male cat’s habits drove you to declawing, so tell me why your female cat had to suffer a cruel and painful operation too ?
To come to a decision between declawing or giving them up proves to me you don’t love your cats as much as cats deserve to be loved.
IF any of our cats had problems and IF the amputation of their toe ends was an option here, I would still never ever do it to them.
I would move Heaven and Earth to provide them with plenty scratching materials to use (which we do anyway)and put up with anything at all, rather than either part with, or cripple our cats.
Your cats may have ‘recovered’ for now but did you look into the complications of declawing which can happen months or even years after declawing ? Such as claw regrowth or a bone splinter moving ? And did youi know that because your cats can’t exercise properly now they are almost certain to develop painful arthritis as they age ?
You say you had a tearful few nights thinking you’d ruined their lives,well carry on crying, because you have !
What you say we force on animals is for their benefit, neutering, vaccinations etc ….declawing is never for the cat’s benefit,it’s for the benefit of selfish people like you Jonathon.

I’m sorry, but I must say you all strike me as hypocrites. I was opposed to declawing but my male cat’s habit of using my leg and pretty much everything else in our house as a scratching post brought me to a crisis. When faced with declawng the cats (littermates) or giving them up I relented and had them declawed. (Relations with human family members and my leg was more important than principle or the cat’s claws.) Our little female recovered almost immediately. Our larger male took a little longer and we had many tearful nights fearing we had ruined his life. But he too recovered and now neither of them appears an worse off. They are loved and active. Why is it ever okay to mutilate any animal? I don’t see much difference between neutering and declawing. We presume to imprison these creatures in our homes and claim them as “ours.” I don’t have a problem with this. My declawed an neutered cats will live longer than any cat in the wild. They have all they need to eat, they have plenty of warm, cozy, safe places to sleep, they have one of their siblings with them and get plenty of human affection for whatever that’s worth. It’s to say we should mutilate animals for our own convenience, but think for a moment of all the things you force on animals for your own convenience, and then decde if you still want to throw stones.

To help illustrate the difference between neutering (both spaying and castrating) and declawing, let me share the following: The first veterinarian I worked for held the opinion that cats and dogs did not need any pain control medication after being spayed or neutered. Now, most of us would disagree with this (and in fact, the majority of veterinarians, especially younger practitioners, now disagree with this older school of thought), but what is telling about this is that this very same veterinarian absolutely REFUSED to declaw, calling it inhumane. There is a vast difference in pain levels and ease of recovery when comparing a spay or neuter surgery to a declaw. It is recognized both in veterinary and human medicine that orthopedic surgery on weight-bearing joints is one of if not the most painful surgeries one can have.

To help illustrate the difference between neutering (both spaying and castrating) and declawing, let me share the following: The first veterinarian I worked for held the opinion that cats and dogs did not need any pain control medication after being spayed or neutered. Now, most of us would disagree with this (and in fact, the majority of veterinarians, especially younger practitioners, now disagree with this older school of thought), but what is telling about this is that this very same veterinarian absolutely REFUSED to declaw, calling it inhumane. There is a vast difference in pain levels and ease of recovery when comparing a spay or neuter surgery to a declaw. It is recognized both in veterinary and human medicine that orthopedic surgery on weight-bearing joints is one of if not the most painful surgeries one can have.

Another very good write up Ruth and pictures that tell the story too.
Fran is right,if more people had their cats neutered there would be less cats needing homes and less excuse for vets to declaw them.
Instead of vets advertising and giving discounts for declawing they could and should advertise and give discounts for neutering.
We know why they don’t….it’s because neutering is a one off and leaves the cat in good health.
Declawing means money in the bank then…. and in the future.It doesn’t matter that the cats suffer,the greedy vets don’t care as long as more money pours in from that suffering.

Thanks Babz.The term “fixing” gets up my nose too.
In my humble opinion some people want neutering as that would stop them breeding more like them.

Yes there’s some confusion about neutering terms, many times you see reference to spaying queens and neutering toms whereas, as you’ve said CJ, neutering covers both sexes and the male equivalent of spaying is castration. I think Ruth has explained this subject extremely well.
What really gets my goat is when people call it “fixing”, you only fix something that’s broke.
However the main thing is, whatever it’s called, that it actually gets done so that unwanted kittens(and puppies)aren’t brought into the world to be homeless or destroyed.

People who say neuter / spay confuse the issue, they both mean the same thing in a female so why not just say neuter.
Good article Ruth.

Another brilliant poster and article Ruth, thank you. Once again it’s been added on the New Claws Connection group

Declawing BAD BAD BAD
Neutering GOOD GOOD GOOD
If the citizens of the USA all had their cats neutered the declaw vets wouldn’t be able to say they declawed to save cats lives.
The old chestnut that there aren’t enough homes so they have to declaw to keep cats in the homes of people who won’t have them with claws wouldn’t ring true any longer.
Irresponsible people breed litter after litter and don’t care what sort of person get those kittens just as long as they are rid of them.They fuel the excuse declaw vets use about too many without homes.
There wouldn’t be so many cats in shelters.
It’s so obvious that I can’t think why there’s no pro neutering education by vets.
Ah but hang on a minute,that would mean a huge fall in the income those vets make from their daily mutilation of cats and the visits to their clinic afterwards.
That’s the truth of the matter.

This stuff the de-clawers are spouting about ‘its no worse that neutering’ is just another lame excuse. Sad thing is that some people seem unable to think for themselves and believe it! I Let me tell you I question everything my vet tells me.

Another brilliant article, Ruth however I find the pictures so very sad. There again I wish people would look closely at your signature box; the little cat with the pink bandadages and the little toes not far away….its all so awful.

We all know that neutering is nothing like de-clawing because we’re not the ones trying to think up lame excuses for animal cruelty.

My cat Alfie was whizzing around the house on the same day he was neutered yet I asked the vet to clip his claws on his last trip and the vet wouldn’t do it because he was so upset just because she was touching his paws. Needless to say I bought him home with his claws as they were. I would rather him continue with his horizontal scratching that have him upset and scared. But this goes to prove a point doesn’t it? that the difference between neuter and de-claw is like night and day.

My Alfie was so upset it made my vet unhappy! This is a proper vet mind you, not one who would mutilate a cat and think nothing of it.

My point is that if my cat is distressed just because his paws are touched then imagine a cat waking up from de-clawing! I find it abhorrent and disgusting; imagine how you would you feel if you woke up and found some essential body parts missing which meant you were left disabled!

Thank you Ruth, for tackling another of the unfounded arguments used by pro-declawers. I hope that this article will help more people understand that neutering/spaying is in no way comparable to declawing.

Neutering/spaying benefits not only the health of the individual, but prevents the birth of unwanted kittens who will in most cases end up being euthanised due to lack of homes.

Declawing as we already know benefits only the owner and the vet.

I’ve read a lot of rubbish that declawing is not as bad as neutering.For God’s sake,how far will people go to justify their crippling of cats.
As Ruth says,neutering is for the good of the cat,declawing is never that.
How much longer will this ignorance and cruelty be allowed to go on.

Just to explain neutering because many American people say spay/neuter.
Neutering means the de-sexing of either sex of animal, in the case of cats the Toms are castrated and the Queens are spayed.
The term neutering covers both sexes in our country.
Sorry if I confused anyone.
Thanks for your comments so far, always much appreciated and good for people to read when these pages come up on Google alerts.
We’ve gained many anti declaw supporters this way.

My Chilli is a neuter, and he is such a love bug! When I pick him up I get purrs and head butts, this is normal behaviour for any cat, but particularly neuters. I don’t know what it is about them, but cats just seem to be a lot more affectionate and happy when neutered. You also don’t have to worry about the constant spraying of males, and the spraying or dripping of females in heat.

Life as a neutered cat is definitely a lot better, and it is incomparible to declawing. To neuter a cat is fine, the cats don’t mind and they feel no pain, but to declaw a cat is cruel, a cat never recovers from being declawed, as Ruth said. But a neutered cat is back to normal as soon as they wake up. Unless of course your cat is anything like mine, being one of the only cats that the vets have ever seen to get high off the anesthetic!

Having a cat in heat is a nightmare. My daughters cat Lola was ALWAYS in heat. We had to wait a month for her surgery. The cats done where I live come home the same day. I know a lot of people don’t have the surgery because they don’t like the overnight part. Lola was DRUNK that night and we kept her in the carrier. At least she was home in her own surroundings. She did fall over 3 times in the litter box but refused help. The internal stitches were the dissolving kind and the outside was glued. She had a reaction a month later and had to be reglued. She has turned into the SWEETEST cat. She wants belly rubs all the time now. She was almost back to normal after 3 days.

Furby did much better with his surgery. He was up and around that night and rested a little more than usual the next day. Then he was wide open playing as usual. He’s turned into even more of a mushybaby. Neither are getting fat because they play together so much.

Why don’t people just do what we did about the claws. They offered a trim with the surgery package and once they grew back we started using the battery operated file on them. Lola’s not too fond of it but Furby doesn’t care what you do to him.

There’s no way I could put a loving animal thru de-clawing.

Cats and dogs have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My cats were always pets, the dogs were show dogs, as well as pets.
You can show an altered cat, and they can be awarded the same titles as their unaltered housemates.
AKC does not allow an altered dog to compete in the show ring. I feel that this is a mistake, and TICA has it right allowing altered cats to compete.
Both of my Borzoi died of reproductave cancer. Neither was ever used for breeding, so altering them would have most likely saved them from this dreaded disease.
Altering your cat helps keep them healthy and happy, and as Ruth said prevents them from adding to the many cats that already are desparately looking for homes.
Declawing has no benefit for the cat at all, so the two are totally unrelated.