Declawing: What is the matter with humans?
Here is an image from The Paw Project FB webpage which I like and to which I have added a little speech bubble. There are a million alternatives but it seems the cats would be bemused watching the film trying to figure why the human wants to hurt them so badly. What is the matter with people who declaw, they might ask because it does not make sense and it is a major breach of trust in the relationship between cat and person. It is a grievous assault in criminal parlance.

Declawing cats: What is the matter with humans?
I will say again, don’t let the vet give your animal a fluoroquinolone antibiotic, like Baytril. These horrible drugs are still being given to animals and people because: We’ve always done it this way!
As the numbers of people harmed by FQ antibiotics grows every day, more and more people coming to online forums, terrified, not knowing what is happening to their bodies and their minds, their doctors telling them it can’t be the pills they took because “Cipro is very safe” (despite a 43 page warning label.) Many of these “floxies” (people harmed by fluoroquinolones) never fully recover. Some people would say that no one fully recovers.
I know a little bit of what those declawed cats feel. I am a Floxie and I am not fully recovered. My future is uncertain, and my body is not the same as it was. I want to ask why this was done to me, but the only answer I get is a variant of “we’ve always done it this way.” Certainly doctors don’t want to create life long systemic illnesses when treating simple sinus infections. But they can’t see the mountains of evidence, including clinical research studies saying these drugs are dangerous.
“We’ve always done it this way” is deadly, and not just in the medical field. That attitude kills pyro technicians every year. It’s the guys with thirty years experience falling victim. New safety regulations are written, new protocols– but most of the old guys don’t follow them. Their excuse for doing things unsafely? We’ve always done it this way. Logic is of no use. You can’t explain why the new way is safer. They will say idiotic things to you like: “If you’re so afraid if this stuff you shouldn’t be working in this field.” Every so often an accident happens to people working in fireworks, but I guarantee you every time the guy in charge had thirty years experience and was not following what are considered safe practices today. They died because “we’ve always done it this way” is stronger than common sense or even self preservation.
This is why I hold out little hope that declawing can be banned unless we start teaching kids right now not to declaw– we need to make their “we’ve always done it this way” to be “we’ve never declawed cats.”
bone splinters removed
Bloody horror. I hate the b**t**ds who do this.
Me too Michael, I can’t even think of the vets who do this, without a deep hatred of them rising within me, you are right, they are indeed b**t**ds!!
None of them love animals or really care. They can’t. You could do this if you genuinely cared and loved animals.
Horrific! made me cry when I first saw this! Cry with compassion for the cat and with a deep deep anger at the perpetrators!! Just look at that paw!! he is a weighty cat as well just imagine the agony 🙁
Yes it’s horrible! It looks to me too as if the poor cat has had to be shaved, he was probably covered in mats. I can’t bear to think of what he suffered and all caused by human beings!
a mutilated paw
Just look at this, this 4 paw declawed cat has had to endure surgery to remove bone splinters, surely it’s enough to convince anyone that declawing is cruel, it must have been agony to walk on those paws.
It’s the power of “we’ve always done it this way” and I believe this attitude is responsible for most of the evil perpetrated in this world. People are so resistant to change or questioning long held beliefs that they are immune to logic, common sense and even compassion. A veterinarian certainly loves animals, or why go into that field? Yet he will literally torture cats. Partial digit amputation is a favorite form of torture. Surely he knows enough about a cat’s central and peripheral nervous systems to realize he will undoubtedly cause phantom pain. He knows he is removing the weight bearing structures, causing the poor cats to walk on their stumps. You can’t win the argument by telling them what they already know about feline anatomy and physiology. They have always declawed cats so it is ok to continue to do so. Our only hope is in training new vets not to do the procedure. But the people teaching them have “always done it this way” so there is not a lot of hope. Change will come very slowly.
I don’t believe that vets who declaw cats (99% of US vets) do love animals. These are intelligent people who know declawing is immoral. They know it is against the poor AVMA guidelines because the vets don’t do it as a last resort. They know it is against their oath. I don’t believe you can truly love animals and carry out this grizzly and hugely painful operation. How they can slice of a part of the toe totally dumfounds me.
No they don’t love animals, vets who declaw certainly don’t love or even respect cats.
It’s good caption that! ‘Why do they do this to us?’ The only answer is ‘because they can’
The vets who declaw cats for the people who don’t want their cat to have claws know full well they ruin cats lives, but they don’t care, cats mean nothing to those butchers disguised as vets!
I just hope one day that they all suffer as much as they cause innocent cats to suffer!
When I saw the picture it seemed that the cats were looking at this bizarre idea of declawing completely bemused as to why humans wanted to hurt them.
God yes, what do cats think about the pain and ruination of their paws when they wake up to the reality of having been forcibly declawed and robbed of their toe ends? It doesn’t bear thinking about the pain and confusion they must feel, and do they ever remember what it felt like to be whole and do they wonder why they were suddenly assaulted in such a brutal way? It’s hard enough for we humans to understand why anyone would want to do it to them, it would be impossible for a cat to understand it.
They are confused and bemused. Humans who should know better don’t know better.