Larkspur Cat Clinic
by Michael
Photo provided by Larkspur
Let's promote the best cat veterinarians as well as criticise the worst. A black and white dividing line between the two is declawing. Vets who declaw are automatically bad vets for me no matter how polite, skilled and knowledgeable they are. This judgment is based on the simple fact that declawing is against the health and welfare of the cat. It is done for the person not the cat. That is in breach of the veterinarian's oath. No vet ever gets punished for that blatant breach, please note.
Larkspur Cat Clinic is a specialist veterinary clinic that only tends to the health of the domestic cat.
Most importantly they make is clear on their website that declawing a cat can cause long term health problems, behavioral concerns and lots of pain. They criticise people who have their cat declawed even before there is a so called "problem" (scratching furniture - which by the way is not a problem). Incidentally, this last criticism of declawing describes the actions of Dr Churan at her clinic. Vets do disagree at fundamental levels.
Yvonne, a visitor at PoC had a good idea. She recommended that we use a new feature at Google (and Google is powerful) to voice our concerns. The feature allows people to review a veterinarian's clinic. Genuine reviews can both boost profits and have a negative impact on profits. As vets declaw for profit this is a nice way of teaching vets that in the long term they will benefit from not declawing. larkspur is proof that vets can make a decent living without abusing cats.
Larkspur is one of the relatively few veterinary clinics in the United States who do not declaw cats. The people there feel like we do about it, which is very refreshing. They are honest about declawing, unlike most vets in the USA who are in denial and/or dishonest in promoting it as acceptable with "weasel words".
Please go to Larkspur's Google Maps page: This is the link (opens in a new window) and leave a review that praises this clinic for taking a stand against declawing, if you can find the time.
Thanks for reading. You can see other animal hospitals that do not declaw on this page of this site: North American Veterinarians Who Never Declaw. You might like to write the occasional review for these vets too.
Michael
We live in Arizona, and when we lived in the Phoenix area (we now live near Prescott), our cats were clients at Larkspur Cat Clinic. Dr. Krista is a marvelous vet, and we chose this hospital not only because it is cat exclusive, but also for its stance on declawing. When we moved to our current area, I asked Dr. Krista to recommend a vet in our new area that did not do declaws. She gave us the name of a hospital that does not do this, and we have been clients ever since. I think it’s important to find a vet that does not mutilate animals on the owner’s whim.