Pro Declaws in Denial
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats
Poster by Ruth aka Kattaddorra
Since joining the anti declaw ranks I have been called many things including crazy and had quite a few threats too, but I had never been called a stalker before I commented on a heated debate on a facebook page!
It amazed me to see how far pro declaws will go to justify their certainty that declawing cats is acceptable.
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Here are just a few of the ignorant and unfeeling comments (spelling unchanged) including some from other pages where people defend their right to pay a vet to mutilate their cat:
From the furniture worshippers:
- “I have 2 de-clawed cats. I figure if I am going to spend thousands of dollars on them over their life time I can do it without having my furniture ruined. My kitten tore my carpet and couch up! He was drugged up and put to sleep while he was declawed.”
- “Got 2 declawed cats. They wouldn’t have stayed had they not been declawed. They were ruining carpets.”
- “I like my furniture more than my cat.”
- “Our cat got on my husbands nerves tearing our house up! Now declawed all of us happy.
I have two declawed cats and it’s better than coming home finding the couch and drapes shredded.”
From the dogs come first:
- “My kitten scratched the dog across the face so I got it declawed.”
- “Was told by Vet to have my cat declawed because I got a Pug puppy which could have eye damage from the cat.”
- “My cat aged 4yrs I did it in fear if her taking out the eyeballs of my nephew’s Chug. The bulging eyes on the fearless dog scared me into doing it. The dog would charge my girl and she would react by swatting and clawing the dog.” (Comment: This last one made me livid, the ‘fearless’ dog can now ‘charge’ the cat and bully her all it likes!)
From the: to protect my kids:
- “Better than our kids faces getting clawed.”
- “My kitten scratched when my kid played with it the claws had to go.”
- “Got my cat declawed before it scratched my babys eye out.”
From the declaw or no home:
- “Its cruel but if my cat hadn’t been declawed I wouldn’t have been able to have her. So ask my cat if it was worth the trade.”
- “I won’t own a cat unless it is declawed.The fronts only, they tear up your stuff if not!!”
- “I was not letting a clawed cat in my house, it was declaw or killed.”
From the declaw or live outside:
- “If my cat wants to come in the house he will not destroy everything and will be declawed. If he wants his claws, he will be an outside cat 24/7.”
- “I owned a Bengal cat. I took her to my vet to have all four paws declawed before I received any injury.”
From the it’s simple surgery:
- “Following a declaw procedure the animal experiences some discomfort for a few days then once it heals they are fine.”
- “Simple surgery beats death any day!”
- “They soon get over it and knows no different.”
From the lucky to have a home:
- “If that means they get a home then I’m sure the cat would be happy to have a home. Even if it had to be declawed.”
- “We would not have a clawed cat in our home it’s a small price to pay to be allowed to live with us.”
From the bad cat:
- “Our cat was declawed and happy, even after we had to make him an outside cat because he went bad and didn’t want to use the litter box.”
- “Our declawed cat turned bad and pooped on the floor he had to get put out after we spent all that money on him.”
From the claws don’t matter:
- “I had a cat that was accidentally declawed years ago when in for spaying but the doctor said she didn’t need them. She was happy so we were happy.”
From the declaw or get rid:
- “My cats are both are very happy healthy cats. It is better for me to declaw them rather than get rid of them.”
- “My cat was clawing furniture and my dad said I had to get her done or we would get rid of her.”
- “They should not claw at couches and beds! Just saying. Better declawed than out.”
- “It was either that or the cat was going back to the Shelter!”
- “I use to clip my cats nails but my man got them declawed or they had to go but I told him leave da back ones in my poor baby.”
From the it’s cruel but cats claws are dangerous:
- “I know it cruel but I declawed my kitty on the front, but it was us who was in danger from the cat.”
- “Don’t like doing it cos it’s cruel but claws are sharp and rip you up.”
From the totally ignorant:
- “I don’t think its right cats have to put up with them sharp things and theyre better off when they’ve gone and us as well.”
- “Cats don’t need their claws we know that.”
- “Its up to owners what they do nobody else and vets wouldn’t do if it was cruel.”
Roll on the day when declawing is banned, will those people still think they were right and we are crazy?
Ruth aka Kattaddorra
Useful tag. Click to see the articles: Cat behavior
I even put a link to a Jackson Galaxy live debate on de-clawing and they still all carried on in denial!
I know, you can hardly believe it can you, they’d rather be in denial about their cruelty even though Jackson Galaxy and other cat experts give them proof.
I just can’t wait for the day they have the smirk wiped off their faces!
Over the last few years we have seen some ignorant, cruel and heart breaking comments like those in the poster about declawing on the net, I can’t believe that people still think it’s a reasonable thing to do to an animal that is supposedly loved by the family who adopt it and that despite all the publicity by the Paw Project, US cities that have banned it and the widespread posts and opinions of people like us that rationalise against declawing there are veterinarians still prepared not only to perform declawing procedures but to openly advertise them as desirable and offer discounts. What will it take for them to stop or will we have to wait until all practicing vets who declaw cats are retired and younger, surely better educated, vets hopefully stamp it out. I wonder if newly qualified vets declaw, I know they are still trained in it but once qualified, unless made to do so by an employer, do they do it or refuse it?
Hopefully newly qualified vets will find it this nightmare scenario
Yes I hope so, glad you have a poster for every occasion 😉
When declawing is banned I’ll be so happy I’ll print them all off and shred them into confetti and run naked round our town singing and dancing and throwing it everywhere lol The USA will see it all on worldwide news lol
OMG! I must be ready with the camera, on video, so our POC friends can witness your arrest LOL
Surely our lovely police here wouldn’t arrest me 😉 in fact I think some of them might join in lol
LOL. If declawing is banned in our lifetime I’ll take everyone on a super little holiday (if I have any money left) where we can sing and dance but not naked 😉
We are trying to figure out what trainee vets are taught at vet school in the USA. I would expect that nothing is said about declawing. It would be nice to know how the lecturers deal with this sore subject.
How can anyone OWN a living being? Are cats slaves? Are we going backwards instead of leaning forward?
How can any living being be considered property- that is an outrage in itself!!!
I totally agree Jo, cats are not our possessions, we are merely their caretakers.
Excellent illustration, Ruth AKA.
It’s such a huge issue that, for me, boils down to peoples’ attitutes about cats.
There are humans that embrace cats as family, and there are humans that claim ownership of cats. The owners rank their cat(s) as property with rights to decide any portion of their fate. And, as property, a cat may not even rank as high as a ball of yarn.
Declawing has to be outlawed, and you are one of the strongest advocates I know.
I’d love to see this happen in our lifetime; then, we can work on the remaining idiotic notions of these owners.
Keep on keeping on, R!!!
Thanks Dee, there are many of you wonderful advocates over there thank goodness because sadly there’s not a great lot we can do from other countries apart from trying to help you educate the pro declaws.
Well, R.
Let me share with you what I just read in the newspaper yesterday, and this is NOT USA bashing, just what I read. For all I know, the UK may be the same.
It’s a brain frying world we live in.
70 million Americans are using mind altering drugs, prescription or otherwise
In addition, 60 million Americans are abusing alcohol
I wonder how many of those have people cats.
How many people live in your country Dee? I think there are percentages here on PoC somewhere of the number of people with cats.
I think it’s only around 60 million altogether live here but I expect we have a lot of drug and alcohol abusers too, there’s a lot in our town alone!
Crazy? Hell no! In spite of all the excellent alternatives to declawing- and I think the surgery should be called “de-toeing”,- people continue to brutalize their cats. Why they get a cat in the first place is beyond me. Cats come equipped with magnificent tools that are so multi-purposed- they need them.
What galls me the most are the vets that sell de-toeing at a bargain rate at the time the cats are neutered and spayed. These unscupulous and unfeeling- UNEDUCATED veterinarians even give out coupons to invite new clients into their practice. It is disgusting and violates their oath to “do no harm”.
Excellent collage Ruth- it truly is sensational. We should print it and drop them off at all the veterinarians in our neighborhoods.
Follow the money folks- THAT is really what this is about. It doesn’t preserve homes, in fact it very often destroys them. Thanks for an excellent post.
Thanks Jo, the declaw vets would probably just laugh at my posters but yes if I lived over there I’d certainly be shoving them through their doors as the pictures of the horror of it all might sink into their money making machine brains.
Just keep fighting the good fight Ruth. I don’t think you will reach as many pro declaw people as you would like. For the most part, people don’t change…but concerted effort in changing the laws, and putting a strain on the finances of veterinarians who declaw might offer more bang. As long as you talk to pro declawers, your blood pressure will boil and you won’t feel movement. The frustration will keep you angry. Which doesn’t help the cat.
I think the education is progressing. Not as fast as we would like.
Focusing on idiots is pointless. Thinking about their cats will break your heart. Then who will make educational posters like above?
Thanks for all you do.
Thank you Dorothy, yes it does break my heart but I will never give up until declawing is banned. It does my heart good when I see my posters being shared on facebook, pictures sometimes speak louder than words.
It’s a good job I don’t live over there though because I’d be sure to end up behind bars, the very thought of mutilating cats makes me feel violent towards the vets who do it and the people who know it’s cruel but don’t care.
To calm down I have to think of the lovely people like you and Dee and Ruth and all the other true cat loving PoCers over there and it’s worse for you actually being where it happens.
Ruth I totaly understand you. It’s heartbreaking – I don’t know what I would do if it were happening where I am. It’s so hard to think of those poor innocent cats being betrayed by the ones who supposedly love them. It’s something out of a horror movie or worse. It HAS to be stopped as soon as possible. It’s so barbaric.
You are right Marc, it is like something out of a horror movie. I’ve thought over and over again how can it be happening? But it IS and we cat lovers MUST stop it!
We have to be careful we don’t hurt ourselves over it. You have to park it in the back of your mind otherwise it becomes depressing.
Yes a cause like declawing can take over your life! I remember when Babz and I first heard about it, we spent hours on yahoo answers trying to get the point across how cruel it is and then the petition took many hours a day, it really got to us both. Then doing the shelter counts for Jean Hofve, We used to dread going twice a week seeing the same declawed cats stuck in shelters week after week.
We were devastated when neither of those pursuits came to much 🙁 🙁
It still gets to us but thankfully there are thousands more anti declaws now and we’ve learned we can’t spend every waking spare moment on this, we can only do our best.
I’m with you Ruth I feel violent towards those people I took part in that debate and every time I went on I became more and more savage!!!
I saw you there Leah doing a brilliant job! Some of them just didn’t want to admit the truth.
I know Ruth I think they know they are doing wrong but they just join in with all the other excuses to try to convince people 🙁
Thank you Michael, yes it was a good bit of work, but worse was my BP going off the richter scale with anger at the idiotic comments those people wrote.
But serious subjects have to be addressed, we can’t always write stuff we enjoy doing can we
🙁
There were quite a lot of anti declaws, some from our very own PoC family, like me trying to educate on there but it was a lost cause, the cruel ones just came back with nasty insulting remarks, some even justifying their cruelty.
I’d never even heard of a Chug dog, an interbred Chihuahua and Pug, with deliberately bulging eyes, it annoyed me so much that one, the 4 year old cat being declawed for the nephew’s dog! I cried for that poor cat. In all my vet nurse days we never had a bulging eyed dog’s eyes scratched by a cat, but we did often have them in to have their eye replaced when they ‘popped’ one. The stupidity of breeding more dog breeds with bulging eyes just horrifies me!
I thought we were making progress with our education about declawing and with the Paw Project film going round and more vets stopping doing it but it seems we still have a long long way to go yet 🙁
We do have a long way to go. Declawing took about 50 years to take hold and become part of the culture; acceptable amongst a large part of society in the USA. It may well take 50 years for what was learned to be treated as acceptable to become unacceptable.
These days too when people are justly criticised they just argue back and shout. Most people don’t accept blame and apologise. Modern way of life.
God, I despair and I sigh when I read these hopeless excuses for declawing. They are all wrong and the people who do it are wrong headed.
When did a cat rip curtains to bits? A lot (all) of these people are unqualified and unfit to keep a cat judging by these extraordinarily ignorant comments. Above all else this is about pure ignorance with a dash of arrogance. This is a toxic mix that afflicts a lot of humanity.
Thanks for posting Ruth. There must have been a bit of work involved in compiling this horror list. And the poster is great as usual.