OPINION (and fact!): In my view, declawing is a veterinary aberration that should never have been invented and it sadly gained traction in the United States. A vet created the idea in the 1950s and probably sold it to clients as the removal of the ‘nails’. How cute and easy 😊. Just like trimming your nails in the bathroom. NO. Afraid not. Far from it. This is 10 partial amputations carried out in 15 minutes with a knife. When I think about it, it makes me wince. And to think a cat caregiver wishes that this is done to their innocent KITTEN?! As you can tell, it makes me angry. But anger is a great motivator.
I know that the odd person who visits this page who has declawed their cat will think I am a pain the bum animal advocate who should be ignored. Each person is entitled to their own views and provided those views do not harm anyone or animal that’s fine. Unfortunately, cats are harmed in their millions by declawing and therefore I cannot respect people who declaw their cats.
For me they are the worst kind of cat owners. They are committing a crime against their cat – the crime of animal cruelty – as far as I am concerned.
Even if the declawing operation goes okay and no bone fragments are left in the paw, the cat has still lost an important part of their anatomy which can have unintended negative consequences such as biting their owner, agitation due to discomfort, irritability causing a less affable character, arthritis due to a distorted gait and so on.
Even the vets don’t know how much pain or not domestic cats feel after the operation going forward.
The official name for declawing is onyxectomy. It is an old Greek name for it to make it seem like a normal vet operation. The literal translation of onyxectomy is ‘nail-cutting-out’. The point is that it is as mentioned an amputation of the end of each toe. Ouch.