I Want to Interview Vets Who Declaw Cats

Why do you declaw cats
Why do you declaw cats, Mr Vet?

I want to travel to the United States of America and/or Canada to interview veterinarians who declaw cats. I also want to interview the cat owners who instruct their veterinarians to declaw their cat(s).

I want to do this face-to-face and I want to record the interview on video. I’m available at any time to do this.

I believe that it is time for declawing veterinarians to go on record and explain why they do it. I want to hear their reasons in their own words. Individual veterinarians may have different reasons. I know that we always say that the reason is for money. However, I would like to explore that reason further. I would also like to hear from the mouth of a veterinarian how he or she squares up declawing of cats with their oath. I want to hear their full argument as to how they justify declawing cats set against their sworn oath.

There are many other questions I can ask and no doubt many questions will come out of the conversation. A videotaped interview with a veterinarian who declaws cats has never been tried before.

I seriously doubt whether any veterinarian will allow himself to be interviewed by me on how they justify declawing cats. I know one reason will be that they do so to save the lives of a cat that would otherwise be abandoned. Their argument does not hold water and we can explore that in conversation. Another reason is that if they don’t do it another veterinarian will and therefore they are forced to declaw cats. That argument does not hold water either and that can be explored further as well.

I would like, if possible, for any reader of this article to come forward and help me set up meetings. I live in London, England. It would be easier for me if somebody could help me set up interviews. I would like to interview a least three veterinarians and three cat owners to make the trip worthwhile because it will be quite an expensive trip. This group of people should, ideally, be not too far apart.

I note that the two prominent anti-declawed veterinarians in America are Jennifer Conrad and Dr. Hovre. I hope they can help as well. What I mean is, I hope they can arrange a meeting between me and a declawing veterinarian.

It is time for a change in tactics and it is time that veterinarians justified their behaviour under public scrutiny.

31 thoughts on “I Want to Interview Vets Who Declaw Cats”

  1. The author of the best comment will receive an Amazon gift of their choice at Christmas! Please comment as they can add to the article and pass on your valuable experience.
  2. I am a current 3rd year student studying veterinary medicine. I don’t think that a) I’ll ever be taught to perform a declaw, as they are heavily discouraged in our curriculum and an emphasis on behavioral modification to curb problematic behaviors is stressed instead, and b) I don’t think I could ethically justify declawing a cat myself. That being said, I don’t think that the procedure should be universally banned. I think that most vets should discourage owners from pursuing this as an option, and should refuse to declaw cats with the exception of a few extreme circumstances. I’ve actually seen my mentor be put in a really difficult ethical situation with regards to the decision to declaw a cat or not.
    I would be happy to answer any questions people may have about the current attitudes of declawing at my university, my opinions about “special circumstances,” or why I oppose a universal ban on the procedure.

    Reply
    • Hi Sarah, thanks for commenting and providing a vet’s insight into declawing. If you are reading this I’d like to ask you some questions which I’ll formulate and put into another comment.

      I am pleased you have the sort of attitude to declawing that I’d expect a vet to have: don’t do it unless it is for the cat’s health and welfare. It is nice to read that.

      However, many vets in the USA don’t have your attitude. They declaw for profit and cause pain and distress to millions of cats as a consequence. My experience tells me that the American vet (taken as a whole) won’t give it up and therefore it has to be banned.

      Vets in general can’t be trusted to do the right thing. That is not to say that there aren’t many vets who dislike declawing for non-therapeutic reasons. There is a certain amount of peer pressure I feel too. Some vets can’t stop because they feel they will be ostracised if they do.

      Reply
  3. Why don’t you all turn your attention to those cats, which far outnumber anything in your book over there in the U.K. to what I see everyday here in the States. Semi-ferals and strays who not even the most supposedly “important” professors on campus care about, and actually encourage their students to torment and torture? I have *so* UNFORTUNATELY had to protect a few of these cats on my field trips while ID’ing trees in the dead of winter. In fact, I commented on this over twelve months ago, and got no comment on this. Turn you attention away for a few seconds, and focus on the United States educational system, would you? It start there!

    Reply
    • So, Michael, if I am leaving comments on OUR website PoC about my veterinarian Dr. Becky Arnold, then I should certainly leave at least one comment about Prof. Richard ‘dick’ Sutton, my “professor,” who deemed himself worthy of commanding the eighteen-yr-old males during our field trips, to throw ice clods at a poor cat who reached out looking for help while we were walking by. I’m sure you can imagine, as the only female and compassionate student, what I HAD to say! grrrrr….
      So good for you and everybody over there in the U.K., for being so persevering…in your endeavors to criticize Dr. Arnold and, thanks, me. Why don’t YOU take any action?

      Reply
      • Caroline we shouldn’t even have to be taking action over declawing because it does not and never has happened in our country, but 5/6 years ago when the UK ‘troops’ formed there were not so many Americans educating about the cruelty of it whilst trying to get it banned.
        How could we stand by and do nothing to help?
        If it had been in our country we’d have been out on the streets educating, with posters and petitions but when Michael organised a protest at St Louis intending to come over and lead it at his own expense, even though 400+ Americans said they would attend…every single one backed out.
        It was left to around 8 of START, the ‘St Louis Animal Rights team’ to protest and be ignored by the vets, they couldn’t have ignored a crowd of 400+
        Lethargy has let declawing go on for decades.Thankfully now there are many more anti declaws but too late to save the thousands of cats whose lives were ruined by declawing.
        We can’t fight all your USA battles for you, we have enough of our own here, but stopping the legalised abuse called declawing is so very important we need to concentrate on that with as much of our time as we can manage.
        So don’t ask us ‘Why don’t YOU take action’ because we are already taking as much action as we possibly can! Michael’s PoC has saved numerous claws, I call that taking action!

        Reply
            • Could we reconvene tmrw? It is so late for me; I have to lie down and get off of this laptop. Shrimpster has been leaning on me heavily since Luck passed. I stopped breathing yesterday and had to be resuscitated, so I am fairly sure that I need some sleep. <3

              Reply
  4. I know just the vet to start with. In my opinion she pretty much makes the bulk of her living cutting off the toes of cats. She’s very active in rescue and runs a monthly low cost spay/neuter clinic, I often wonder if she does this good things in the hopes it will offset the bad karma from the evil she does.

    Reply
    • You make a good point, as far as I am concerned, namely that this vet probably does the low-cost spray/neuter to present a good image to the world. I think that makes it worse because it’s devious or she so stupid she doesn’t even realise that she’s doing something terribly wrong in declawing cats. The difficult thing is getting people to talk about it honestly or talk about it at all.

      Reply
      • No luck so far, I think the declaw vets know they are in the wrong, that being interviewed will show them up as the cat abusers they are. It’s sickening! No amount of good works by any of these vets can make up for the evil they commit on cats.

        Reply

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