Declawing Kittens Is Cruel

When someone goes to the vet, everything of which the vet suggests is not compulsory, it's your cat and what happens to your cat is 100% up to you. So, yes, it's the vets fault for making the recommendation of declawing, being medical professionals they should most certainly know better, but it's the owner's fault for acting upon that recommendation. If my cat was to have a surgery of any sort the first thing I would do would be to reasearch, and find out what effects may occur after that surgery.

In my opinion, it's the vet's duty to perform medical practises upon animals, it's not the vet's duty to be honest to pet owners, and as you can see from the whole concept of declawing, many vets are not honest to pet owners... Which is clearly far from beneficial to the animals... =(

Yes the owners are to blame too.
I recently had a telling off for saying that and was told that vets are entirely to blame.
How can that be when it's the responsibility of the owner to care for the cat as cats should be cared for?
We know how wrong it is to take a kittens or a cat's claws,it's surely common sense that they come with claws because they need them.So why doesn't everyone know that too?
I certainly wouldn't let any vet persuade me to do something so uneccessary and so cruel to one of our cats.

That's just so cruel... My God, an 8-week-old kitten, it's been alive for such little time and its life has basically been destroyed already... This is so wrong, I want to find the owners of this kitten and have a few words... Stupid people, the owners are just as bad as the vets in my opinion..

It has to be stopped.Every kitten has a right to keep its claws.
This has upset me very much.Count me in to help tell everyone I know how cruel it is.

Maggie I don't know if you're on facebook but I've just seen a picture of the devastation wreaked on a kitten of EIGHT WEEKS paws, honestly they are like pieces of raw meat. There is a group called Say No To Declawing, and the picture is in their album.

Gee this is a twisted world, isn't it? Everywhere you turn is evidence of the human race sicking lower and lower... In Babz's blog, it said that people declaw cats to protect their family... Well, all my animals are my family, and I'm sure everyone here feels the same about their own animals, so by declawing their cats are they really protecting their family, or just the human part of it? So incredibly selfish... Gosh, I still can't believe it, defenseless kittens going through such extreme trauma, abuse and cruelty...

I can't wait for the day where people stop abusing animals and using them... I mean, just stop for a moment and try to imagine a world without humans... No more cruelty to animals, no more slaughtering of millions of animals per year to feed people.... Everything would just be the way it should be, the way nature intended it to be...

Yes Maggie it's horrific and cruel as it deprives kittens of their toe ends/claws for life.
They never know the pleasure of enjoying a good dig in of their claws to stretch their muscles or the joy of hooking a toy in their claws and playing as healthy kittens do.
Vets recommend declawing as better done young because kittens recover quicker.That's what really gets to me, a supposed to be last resort being advertised by vets to encourage people to have their kittens declawed.
Yes declawing wrecks their toes/paws just as it does older cats too.
There have been countless litters of kittens from newly born to all stages of their kittenhood declawed for studies too.
It doesn't bear thinking about how the mother cats coped with having their babies toe ends amputated.
It always puzzles me that even though surely everyone knows cats have claws, why they get a cat if they don't like that fact.

God, yes Maggie they certainly do take away kitten's toes too, in one of my blogs http://clawsforever.blogspot.com/2009/10/hurting-babies.html
I wrote about a practice in Wisconsin advertising declawing from 12 weeks old, though I'm pretty sure we could easily come up with a practice that mutilates them at an even younger age.
Pro-declawers have no regard for the proper development and growth of kittens paws, they just want the claws off and the sooner the better.
On this site http://www.janskids.com/ there is a picture of a kitten's tiny paws, how anyone could operate on them for no good reason is beyond me. Declawing is pure evil, no-one can convince me otherwise.

Do people really declaw kittens? How can they do that if the kitten's claws haven't even finished growing and developing? Wouldn't that wreck the development of the kittens toes/paws? That's horrific... People always say imagine having all your finger and toe tips chopped off, but imagine doing that to a baby... Having said that, it means the kitten would have to live its entire life like that.... =(

You said it sister, how can anyone look at the tiny paws of a kitten and plan to have them cut or burned into, knowing the pain and deformity they are choosing to inflict on their kitten? How can anyone look at a healthy adult cat and think that declawing would improve him or her? How can anyone speak civily to, and patronise the business of, a veterinarian who takes money to mutilate cats? It's beyond me!!!

Yes Sue I too feel physicaly violent towards people who have their cats declawed.Also towards the vets who declaw those cats.
I try to think kindly of the people who out of ignorance of the procedure have it done to their cats but it's very hard because a cat comes with claws and they have no business wanting those claws taken away.
In the UK no one would ever dream of doing something so terible.

Yes declawing kittens is cruel and I can't think how anyone can dare to say they love cats and have that done to them.
For people to knowingly cause them pain and mental distress makes me feel sick inside.I actualy feel violent towards those cruel people.I want to hurt them just like they hurt their cats.
Does any one else feel like that?

Jane A,you COULD write articles too and it's a brilliant idea to flood the internet with them.
Come on ALL anti declaws,let the pro declaws know we are not going to go away,the cruel practice has gone on too long already !
Yes if they had left Tamuri with us he'd have still been here.

Thanks everyone for your wonderful comments and back up.
Ocolet (what a lovely name)you are so right,it's the cats home and furniture too and in the end, what do inanimate objects give you back ? Not the love and devotion cats do, that's for sure.I'm glad Australia is one of the countries where although declawing isn't totally banned, it's considered extremely inhumane, so very rarely done.I know like the USA you have a lot of indoor cats only, because of dangers outside,but you don't declaw your cats so why should they !
Tracey I'm so sorry about your problem and I'd be like you and try the treatment however much it cost,before the last resort of having his teeth removed.I'm hoping and praying now the treatment works!
I can imagine how you feel knowing your cat may have to go through it to be well.So I can only agree with you and wonder how on earth people can subject their cats to a totally uneccessary and cruel crippling operation.
No they DO NOT love cats !

Ruth you are so right, your commnent's are always spot on; you tell it like it is.

Just the very thought of inflicting such suffering on an innocent little kitten makes me feel sick. I would love to shake some sense into these people that do this.

I don't even think I have words anymore to express the loathing I feel for the vets that routinely carry out this uneccessary procedure.

I have a Maine Coon who I adore. He is now 18 months old. He has a virus that he somehow contracted early in his life; the Calichi virus which attacks the gums. He is on a very expensive course of treatment running into hundreds of pounds already (I'm not rich but when you love your pet you find the money from somewhere.) It may not work but I had no choice, I had to give him the opportunity as the alternative is to remove his teeth.

When the vet told that this may have to happen I must've gone White because he asked me if I would like to sit down. Even though I've been advised by many and I've done my research that this would be best for him I just don't want it to happen. I also know that if his treatment doesn't work in the long run he will be a lot more comfortable and not in pain as his gums will harden. Its just the thought that I would cause him a lot of initial pain and it would be me and no one else who had done this to him. He's very intelligent too and I know he would look at me as if to say 'why?'
I'm praying that the treatment will work but if it doesn't I will do what is best for him.

I know it appears that I am moving from the point in question but you see really I'm not. I don't mention my Maine Coon heartache to many as I hate to discuss it but my point is it fills me with shock, dismay & dred even though I know in the long run he will be better off. So [how, just how] can anyone say they love their cat or kitten and take them to have this totally uneccessary procedure done without literally a second thought? I know my cat will lead a happier life in the end but they are sentencing their kitten to a life of pain. They are not cat lovers and I would love someone to come on here and tell me they are.

[No one who loves their cat or kitten would do this!] End of story.

Ruth I wish I had the know how and the ideas to write about declawing from different angles like you do.
I wish everybody against it would write and flood the internet with write ups.
Chip chip chip at the rotters who do it/have it done until they are so sick of us they stop the damn thing.
BTW I love the piccy of your gorgeous boys and Tamuri.Was he the one they rehomed with old relatives and he was run over?You must have been broken hearted.
x

This type of procedure is pretty much unheard of in Australia. I can't believe people would do that to a cat. Not only are a cat's claws vital to their outside survival, but they are also used to express emotion and personality. If you had an antique sofa, couldn't you just keep the cat out of the room? I'm getting a new brown suede sofa delivered this week, and I know, despite me covering it with one of her fabiurite rugs, that she'll get her claws into it somehow. But, hey, we'll both be enjoying it in our own ways!

Although there might be a few humans that deserve the procedure, give me a cat with claws any day!

As always Ruth your articles and comments are "spot on".Causing unnecessary pain to any animal is cruel.Mutilating poor kiities by declawing them is unnecessary and inhumane!People who put a higher value on their material "things",then on the happiness and well being of their pets,should NEVER be allowed to own a pet,nor to know the joy and love that go with it! Kudos Ruth!

I cannot imagine how anyone can willingly surrender a kitten, or a cat for that matter, knowing that it's tender little paws are going to be almost halved in size by the surgeons knife or laser. And that it will come home needing care and attention and be poorly for at least a week let alone what happens afterwards. Where is the love other than for self convenience and worship of earthly possessions? Thank you for this post, I hope some people who see no wrong in declawing see it.

Another good article Ruth.I love the photo of your cats as kittens with their friend.Who could ever hurt them on purpose?
I don't know either how anyone can plan to take their kittens for such a cruel procedure and how they can actually go through with it knowing how un-neccessary it is.
Worse is people getting kittens but even before they do,already making plans to have that done to them.
You can't tell me anyone doing that loves cats because that's a load of rubbish.
I hope they get their just deserts and suffer somehow themselves.