By Ruth aka Kattaddorra
It seems hard to believe now, but just over five years ago I discovered that the declawing of cats was almost routine in some parts of the USA. It was a horrible shock, because even before this was banned in our country, our vets considered it unthinkable, knowing how essential a cat’s claws are to his health and fulfillment.
Now it feels as if I’ve known and been helping to educate and fighting for declawing to be banned, for ever.
I was browsing Yahoo Answers when I first saw on the cats’ questions page someone asking what she could do to help her newly declawed cat who was in pain. Most of the replies said she would be OK eventually as cats got over it pretty well. Someone even said that many vets didn’t give cats pain medication so that they wouldn’t attempt to jump around until their toe ends healed.
I could hardly believe it was legal or that no one commented how very cruel that surgery is.
I said to Barbara “It’s like the song ‘One Voice Singing in the Darkness’ I feel so alone in my horror at this legalised abuse of cats”.
and she replied: ‘But now we are two voices, I’ll join you Ruth’
We started an internet group called ‘The Claws Connection’ and soon we had lots of members from all over the world and ‘Just One Voice Singing in the darkness’ became many voices:
‘Shout it out and let it ring.
Just One Voice,
It takes that One Voice,
And everyone will sing’
We invaded Yahoo Answers and began our campaign to educate, meeting up with many more anti-declaw people, there were some after all. Our UK anti-declaw people were known as ‘the troops’
We then invaded Facebook and I started the group ‘The International Coalition Against Declawing’ which now has 256 members many of whom are actively educating others and more are joining us all the time. We have remained long distance friends with lots of people all over the world, in our shared cause.
The campaign grew and we ‘met’ people like Annie Bruce, the author of Cat be Good who had campaigned against declawing for so long it had taken its toll on her health. She was very pleased to hear other countries where declawing was banned were taking notice that America was lagging behind.
I started an online petition which eventually had over 4,000 signatures, many from famous people in the animal world, such as Benjamin Zephaniah, Jeremy Angel, Helmi Flick and J.M.Willis and many more, too numerous to list.
Eventually, sadly the petition was lost when the web site went down for good, but The Paw Project had used it at some of the Californian Cities fighting for a ban, as proof that so many people were against such cruel surgery, so it wasn’t entirely wasted.
But best of all I came across PoC and ‘met’ Michael, a great anti-declaw advocate and he and Babz and I and other visitors wrote many educational articles about declawing and I designed posters showing the horror of the cruel surgery.
Sebastian’s Diary was a great hit even though someone said it was too English. PoC has saved many cats claws.
Vet techs started telling people the truth about how cats suffer when waking up from declawing, they described how some threw themselves around the recovery cage opening their wounds and how some hunched in the corner, shocked and bewildered.
The AVMA turned a blind eye to all this even though their policy was that declawing should only be a last resort for serious scratching behaviour. They ignored the fact that far from this surgery being done as a last resort, kittens were being declawed along with neutering and they also ignored the fact that vets were advertising a neuter/declaw package or declawing with discount. They ignored all of that and they still do!
Now there are thousands of people enlightened to the truth that declawing isn’t ‘just removing the claws’ (bad enough) but the amputation of the cats last toe joints.
Sadly there are still people who don’t know this, nor the physical and/or mental consequences of declawing and while some vets have never declawed and some have stopped declawing, there are still many who are making many dollars from the suffering of cats.
There are also people who even knowing that declawing is cruel think their furniture is more important than a living creature’s health and welfare.
The vets who break their sworn oath to cause no animal to suffer and who profit from declawing cats, will not stop until declawing is banned. The anti-declaw movement is growing daily and we will not stop until declawing is banned.
The Paw Project are doing wonderful work, apparently the film they have made is very educational and is saving many more cats claws. We haven’t been able to see it in the UK yet.
So, the battle to educate and to work towards that happy day when declawing is banned worldwide, goes on…….
Great poster and article Ruth. I can well remember the shock and horror we both felt when we realised that declawing was happening on such a huge scale in the USA, I’d heard of it vaguely but if I thought about it much I thought it was something that had been done in the past but long since discontinued in these more enlightened times. How wrong I was! As I looked into it and learned more from Ruth’s research I realised declawing was happening almost routinely to cats, as common as vaccination and neutering and in fact encouraged by vets to be done at the same time, and yet this was supposed to be a last resort surgery. It pretty much took over our leisure time for a long time, campaigning, updating the pages of and running the group on Ning which eventually folded, writing to celebrities hoping for high profile backing, infiltrating Yahoo Answers for which I temporarily lost my much loved email address when someone complained about me, and doing the data collection for Dr Hofve which included in Ruth’s study the shelter where Vincent was one of the number of declawed cats and because he lived in her mind from then on eventually led to Vincent and his friend Torti being rehomed in the sanctuary which is happening about now, we were trying to work it out and it has to be around 4-5 years ago that she first saw Vincent and included him in her numbers.
How wonderful it was to meet up with people with the same views as us, to form a group of fighters on Facebook and to “come home” to POC the home of true cat lovers who will, and do, fight for the rights of cats the whole world over.
In my opinion things have improved a bit, more and more people are against the cruelty that is declawing though there is a long way to go, I hope eventually it will be banned all over the USA and Canada and in every other country worldwide. Meanwhile I STILL can’t get my head round the fact that anyone would want, would choose to have, would pay to have, their cats healthy toe ends being surgically removed!
To Ruth and anyone who haven’t seen the paw project movie. It is available on DVD and available for rent or buy at ITunes, Amazon instant, U-verse, Dish, google play and you tube.
Thanks Jan, we’ve sometimes been told that it’s not our business as it’s not our country, but it surely is the business of all cat lovers worldwide to help stop cats suffering if we can. Thank you for all you do for animals too x
Like you Michael, I don’t like writing about declawing because the very thought of this being done to many cats makes me feel quite ill, it feels like some sort of nightmare, too incredible to believe it really does happen.
But once I knew that it truly does happen there was no way I could turn a blind eye and since then there is no way I can stop trying to help to stop it happening.
There are many good Americans who hate declawing as much as we do and I really feel for them living in a country where it happens. I can’t understand how any one can think it’s acceptable to mutilate cats that way, especially vets who declaw, those people surely trained to help animals, not to cause them suffering.
PoC is a very brave web site and not afraid to tell the truth, as horrible as that truth is!
As always Ruth I applaud your efforts in stopping this horrific practice! You ,Babs and Michael are an inspiration to us all! My hats off to all of you!!!
The topic of declawing cats is a difficult one to write about. Actually, I don’t really like writing about it because I feel I am criticising the whole of the United States. I am not. I am critical of the veterinary practice of declawing cats. That is all.
I don’t have any choice. I have to write about it and publish articles on it because to me it is one of the cruellest things I have seen with respect to the domestic cat. I hate cruelty against animals.
There is a big culture clash when it comes to declawing cats. I accept that. I do respect the views of other people. I just happen to strongly disagree with people who support declawing.
I want to thank Ruth for her tireless work in fighting to ban declawing. I’d like to thank all the others too. There are many who dislike it as much as Ruth and I.
As Ruth states; the fight to stop it must go on indefinitely until it is over.