I LOVE CATS, CLAWS AND ALL
by Ruth
(England)
BEAUTIFUL JOZEF
What I love about cats I could say in one single word:
EVERYTHING
Or I could write a whole book instead. But I’ll try to hit the happy medium.
I love every single part of cats, from their whiskers to their claws.
Each and every part is perfectly made and has a purpose, but I won’t go into detail here because there are already many articles about those purposes and I think all cat lovers already know them.
We know a swishing tail can say lots of things, as can the various positions cats put their ears into. We can tell what the various meows of our own cats mean and if our cats are happy, sad, hungry, thirsty, afraid, want attention or whatever.
But what is sometimes very hard to tell is if a cat is in pain. Cats are brave, they are such stoic creatures, they don’t like us to know they are suffering because it makes them feel vulnerable. So it’s easy for a cat to be quite poorly before this is noticed. A sure sign is a cat hiding away and avoiding contact with us. Another is the cat going off his food. A cat eating or drinking nothing for 2 days is in trouble and we know it means a trip to the vets.
Cats are not ‘yes men’ and that to me makes them much more lovable than dogs who always try to please. If someone abuses dogs they howl but they go back to that person. I do love dogs but I admire cats, they have much more sense, they stay away from abusers.
IF THEY CAN
But sadly, some caretakers hand them over for legalised abuse, by which of course I mean declawing.
The most misunderstood part of a cat by some caretakers is their claws. Some people look upon these beautiful parts of a cat as if they are lethal weapons of mass destruction.
THEY ARE NOT !
Claws are a very essential part of cats for their health and happiness. As well as for self defence claws are needed to walk as a cat needs to walk, to exercise the muscles by digging them in and stretching, to groom and regulate body temperature, to mark territory and to play.
It may be true that indoor only cats don’t have to defend themselves in a home where no child or other animal abuses them. But an indoor declawed cat sadly misses his very essential claws for all the reasons above.
Even the best home in the world is too high a price to pay for a cat to have to live without his toe ends/claws.
Claws are embedded into bone because they were never meant to be removed. Whichever method is used for the legalised abuse called declawing, the operation removes the bone containing the claw cells which the miraculous and much needed claws grow from.
So why would anyone when they find out the truth about the cruelty of declawing and how much cats need their claws, ignore all that and pay to have their cat declawed, yet still call themselves a cat lover?
It doesn’t make sense to me.
Trimming cats claws and providing a scratching post is a very obvious thing to do and so very easy. There is NO excuse to disable a kitten or a cat for life by having him declawed.
There is NO excuse for the vets who do this surgery. There is NO excuse for Rescue Shelters having kittens or cats declawed before they are adopted out.
In fact there is NO excuse whatsoever for declawing any cat at all.
CLAWS ARE THE ESSENCE OF THE CAT
and taking them away from any cat is incredibly cruel.
38 countries have banned declawing or consider it so extremely inhumane it is very rarely done, 8 Californian Cities have banned it too.
The civilised world is watching and waiting for the vets of the USA and Canada who declaw, to join those who do not.
