That is the saddest story I have ever read about a cat.

Sure as God made the little green apples it would be a best seller – you should seriously go for it let them have it between the eyes about what they doing to cats

Please tell me this will be a book available in the US

Get this story printed off into book form and sent to a publisher!
OK?

What do they mean “too English?” Seems perfect to me!

Yes I would choose the same as you Ruth because those ferals are living the life they were born to live, claws and all. They don’t miss having a home because they’ve never had one.
I don’t think having their toe ends amputated is ever a fair price for a cat to pay for a home.
You love Monty claws and all, true cats lovers love their cats unconditionally.

I need someone to Americanise Sebastian’s Diary for me as quite a few have told me I should send it to a publisher. I’d do that if I thought it would get around the USA and save some cats claws.
But one person told me it would be better if it wasn’t so English !!!
lol I can’t help that as I AM English
What does everyone think ?

Thank you for this, since I think this might be useful someday in saving the toes of some cats. My husband and I know someone who was raised to believe you “have to” declaw cats. She’s an avid reader of novels and your story about Sebastian might reach her in a way conventional articles on declawing would not.
I’m having trouble sleeping and must confess Sebastian’s diary isn’t a good choice for a little late night reading. It made me so sad I had to go into Monty’s room and pet him where he was sound asleep in his little tent bed. I hope I didn’t upset him, messing with his routines that way, and he was really sleeping soundly, but I needed a bit of comfort; touching my dear little kitty who got to keep his claws and toe ends and will have them forever.
Who is worse off– Monty’s feral siblings who have been coming into our yard a lot and wintering at the bottom of the steps near our basement door? Or my friend’s cats who live indoors but paid for that warmth and security with the loss of their toes? If I were a cat I’d rather take my chances outside than go through what Sebastian suffered.

Too right anonymous, I wish it was just a story but although it’s told as fiction IT IS FACT, and having read it I can’t understand why declawing is still either wanted or allowed can you?

Talk about a tear jerker.I have read this diary from beginning to end and have gone through a whole box of tissues.
This is the truth told in a simple way.

Anonymous you have to be admired for your confession and regret.
We in countries where declawing is banned but it never happened anyway can’t understand why people get cats only to put them through such a terrible procedure.
Even if you only thought it was the claws,it is dreadful to take healthy and needed parts.
Some argue that neutering/spaying takes healthy parts.Yes it does but those parts are not needed like claws are and cats have healthy stress free lives after neutering/spaying.
To all of us here,cats have claws because they need them and we can’t understand how people in your country don’t know that.
It’s as if you are brainwashed by the vets who do it.
Even in the face of all the evidence of troubles declawing causes they still do it.
The only conclusion to be drawn from that is that they love money and don’t care less about cats suffering to get that money.
The only consolation is that there are more people like you coming to their senses and vowing never to have another cat mutilated by a so called professional.

EVERYONE stay clear of declaw vets,don’t trust them with your precious cats.

Hello and thank you for your comment.
My heart goes out to you because you are one of the people who truly regret blindly taking your vet’s advice to declaw Junior instead of doing some research first. So many people are in denial even now when it’s known how cruel and crippling declawing is, because it suits them to be able to carry on having it done to their cats instead of taking the time to teach them to use a scratching post. It’s a quick fix for those people but lifelong problems for their cats.
I’m sad that Junior has arthritis and hope you now have a good vet to help him with medication, not one who declaws !
I can understand you don’t want Romeo and Juliet to hurt him. You could trim their claws maybe.
I don’t know about soft paws as we don’t use them, our cats live naturally with the claws they come along with.We watch over our vulnerable older cats here with great care and seperate them when no one is around to do that. But I’ve heard they are good. Maybe someone else will come on and tell you about them.
No I don’t know a Sebastian as I live in England where even before declawing was banned our vets wouldn’t do it. But I do know about cats as I’ve had the pleasure of them in my life for 36 years now and worked as a vet nurse for many years.
I’ve done a lot of research on declawing since I found out it still happens in the USA and Canada and I feel compelled to try to help save cats from this.
Sebastian’s Diary was the hardest story I’ve ever written as I love cats so very much and he became real to me.
Vets who declaw have such a lot to answer for, they know full well the consequences of it yet they keep on doing it because it makes them a lot of money.
Hopefully one day it will be banned.
PLEASE Help us by signing and passing on our petition if you haven’t already, by educating as many people as you can as to the cruelty of it and by boycotting vets who declaw.
Take care.
X Junior X Romeo X Juliet (I love their names)

I live in the U.S. & only learned a few years ago about the pain of declawing. Here (particularly before it was common to have internet in the home) we were told that declaw was perfectly safe & didn’t hurt the cat. Declaw was once routinely done here with spay/neuter & I have declawed several cats throughout my lifetime, cats I loved as my own children!

I have 3 cats now, Junior (16 years old & declawed, unfortunately), Romeo & Juliet (both 8 months.) I must admit that Junior has had some arthritis… He is a spoiled baby & I have tried to pamper him, making him as happy as possible. I found out a few years ago how terrible declawing a cat truly is & my 8 month olds (along with any future cats who own me) will NEVER be declawed! I am trying to decide now whether to have them fitted with Softclaws, not because they scratch furniture (they use their scratching posts & cat trees) but because I do not want them to hurt poor Junior, their older brother.

This was so hard for me to read, but I did make it to the end although I am crying uncontrollably. I feel such terrible guilt for declawing Junior & the other cats I had before I knew it was so traumatizing for them… Although I do not excuse myself – I should have researched before I had my babies declawed, I am so angry at the vets who knew just how painful a procedure this was & lied to pet owners about it to make a buck!

This was lovely… Thank you so much for writing! Do you know a Sebastian?

Ruth, Thank you so much for writing this, I sat with my cat Bailey in my lap crying my eyes out as I read it. I kept looking at him thinking how could anyone hurt you, you are so innocent. It breaks my heart just thinking about all the cats that are tortured from this surgery. Hopefully this diary will change the minds of thousands who read it.
Good and Brave work, I commend you for writing this.
Blessings
Kate

Ruth, Thank you so much for writing this, I sat with my cat Bailey in my lap crying my eyes out as I read it. I kept looking at him thinking how could anyone hurt you, you are so innocent. It breaks my heart just thinking about all the cats that are tortured from this surgery. Hopefully this diary will change the minds of thousands who read it.
Good and Brave work, I commend you for writing this.
Blessings
Kate

Thank you for your compliments about my poetry and your information on houses there.I don’t think we will be leaving England now, a bit too ancient to up sticks these days lol and those spiders would most definately put me off!
Sad as I do enjoy your descriptive writing very much and I’d have loved to meet you.

Dear Ruth and Barbara,

Meant to reply to your posts before now, but my computer exploded last Friday. While things didn’t reach the point where I ended up in the bushes at 4:00 in the morning swatting bugs, trundling my monitor downstairs – it’s four feet thick and the stairs two feet wide – inflamed me with longing for the Age of the Goose Quill.

If you’d like to escape crowds of people, wailing sirens, brick and asphalt, my wilderness retreat is not only peaceful,it’s ravishingly beautiful. My paternal grandmother, who studied family trees, discovered that we’re distantly related to Price Edward Island’s Joshua Slocum, the first seafaring chap to circumnavigate the globe alone. (Which seems improbable, when mariners have sailed the seas for millennia.) Anyhow, I can drive 8 minutes out my front door and feel as alone as Joshua. There’s no one in sight, no cars or houses, nothing but meadows covered in snowdrifts of daisies, centuries-old forests festooned in moss, thundering surf, spume and spindrift, mist-shrouded beaches strewn with silvery clumps of driftwood—and profound, daunting solitude.
___________________________
So far from ‘creeping,’ my summer house spiders step right along with dainty resolution! Counting their leg span, the little rascals are two inches in diameter, and when they fall in my bathtub at night, next morning I trap them in a jar and carry them outside. We also have many non-venomous snakes,large and small. It’s fun to catch them, give them a pet and a peck on the cheek before turning them loose. As for the cats – you’d be in your element. The people down here throw stale hotdog buns in the road for the cats to gnaw on. There are hordes of cats – multitudes of kittens and tottering feline Struldbrugs who’d be overjoyed to strike up an acquaintance with you.

If you ever tire of your wonderful homeland, you can buy a two-bedroom house over here for $28,000 — or a historical landmark gingerbread mansion with turrets, stained glass windows, faded murals in the salon, and a winding staircase for $500,000. Real estate in this area is a fraction of what it is in Seattle.

As always, I enjoy your PoC posts.

S.

Thank you for your kind comments, I do love writing stories and poetry,I’ve had one or two small prizes but I’ll never be rich or famous.
I don’t enjoy writing about declawing, but I feel compelled to do it in the hopes that some of my words or pictures may touch someone’s heart and melt it and stop them having their cat declawed.
Yes we have had some adventures in our cat rescue days,my going down the well was nothing compared to Babz going up on a roof aagghhhh, I dare hardly look.
I’m with Babz in that if there are cats around and a library nearby where you live ,I’d be happy too.
But no spiders allowed !
xx

How did it go?
Did you convince her?
If not then show her those terrible pictures of newly declawed cats,no one human could look at them then have it done to their cat.
I don’t know how vets can do it and leave them in that state and go off without their conscience troubling them.
They surely are not human.

Well man I had to wait all week for the ending and then to get my turn on the computer and was I not glad its happy.
I couldnt think how it could be happy for a cat without toe ends but its as happy as you could make it with Sebastian getting a nice home and the pain treatment when he needed it.
When you think about it it really does ruin a cats life doesnt it.
I look at my cats and cant get it into my head how anyone could ever criple their cats on purpose.
Well done Ruth for this sad tale with the ending we hoped for Sebastian lives on.
Ed

Hi Alanna,you are obviously one of us, a true cat lover.
I’m so sorry I made you cry, I cried buckets myself while writing it but if it’s saved even one cat it’s worth every tear.
Talking about declawing in our country fills us all with shock and horror that is still happens in the USA and Canada. Even before it was banned here our vets wouldn’t do it.
Your declawed cat is very typical of how fearful they become because their first line of defence (their claws) have gone.I’m so glad he now has a kind understanding home with you and I hope he doesn’t have too many problems in the future.
I also hope you can convince your fiance’s mother and sister just how cruel declawing is.
THANK YOU so much for trying.
I made a happy ending for Sebastian but most declawed cats don’t have happy endings,they are killed, or caged for life after people get sick of the problems they have from the declawing.
Thankfully most Shelters now have people sign a no declaw contract but some people (like Sebastian’s mom) ignore that and think they can get away with it.She did because I didn’t want to go into anything legal,I don’t know enough about it, but people can be prosecuted for breaking the contract and have the cat taken from them.
Your fiance’s mother and sister might wonder why some vets do this operation if it’s so cruel,well the truth is they make a lot of money from it,the operation itself and then all the times the cat goes back with problems …stress illnesses such as cystitis or eczema, painful joints and other complications,also mental problems like aggresssion,depression, litter box avoidance and biting.Those vets also like declawed cats as they are easier to handle than clawed ones, they and their staff don’t have to worry about being scratched.
If all else fails to convince people how cruel declawing is there are some pictures of newly declawed cats to look at:

https://pictures-of-cats.org/recently-declawed-cat-pictures.html

which show the shock and agony of 2 poor cats just after the operation and will convince anyone without a heart of stone never to have a cat declawed.
THANK YOU again for your kind comments and if you could sign our petition and pass it on to as many people as you can it would help us a lot.

I cried threw the whole thing. I never cry and this just broke my heart. We own 6 cats, one which had been declawed before we got him. My fiances mothr got him because she declaws her cats and he was already declawed. We spend hours yelling screaming and lecturing her on declawing and how its horrible but she never listens. My fiances sister wants to declaw her cat but we pointed out she signed a contract saying she wont and now she is a bit upset about that. The declawed cat always acts scared when hes down stares and hides under a table even thou no one is yelling or even talking but after reading this Im thinking he livd in a house like that. We got him when he was only 2 or so when we got him. They must have declawed him and had no patience for what they put him thru. Im happy we have him and give him a loving home now. Im showing this diary to her tonight and showing her how the cat feels. Thank you

Sylvia Ann, if there were cats and a library I’d be content, and to live surrounded by wilderness rather than bricks and mortar and hear only animal noises rather than telephones, motorbikes and emergency vehicles sounds like paradise, the only trouble I’d have would be with creepy crawlies. If spiders and or snakes appeared as the serpents in your Garden of Eden then I’d be off……..

Ruth – bless your heart. Though that woman deserved to be whipped through the streets, you gave us a happy ending for your kitty man. I’ll miss him, by the way. You not only know how to write short stories, you’re also a poet. I thought my dad’s death drained me of tears, but Sebby-Wee’s happiness wrung some more from me. Women weep both when they’re sad and happy Do men often do that?

I’ve also enjoyed reading some of your earlier posts – especially the one where you lowered yourself into the well to reach the kitten. ‘Pity is more promiscuous than lust and unlike lust – it doesn’t diminish in later life.’ [Graham Greene]

You’d kindly expressed an interest, Barbara, in where I live. In truth, the only thing that would save you from keeling over with spiritual scurvy is our libraries and a satellite radio. I live surrounded by wilderness which is, however, so beautiful you’d be enthralled.

Take care,

S.

Thank you I didn’t know.

Thanks for this brilliant work Ruth, I have enjoyed knowing Seb, accompanying him on his journey through the nightmare of declawing was hard but necessary because cats should not go though this horrible thing alone, everyone should know and realise what happens to cats that are declawed and shouldn’t blank out the time between dumping them at the vet and picking them up disabled.
I think we all know that not many declawed cats in Seb’s circumstances would have such a happy ending to their story, but I think that, because of all the harrowing content,and because we’d all got so fond of Seb, we who know how cruel declawing is and who do as much as we can to spread this knowledge deserved to have a happy ending to this story because otherwise we’d have been haunted by the thought of the poor little soul forever!
I wish all the real-life Seb’s could have happy endings, and the happy ending I most wish for is the ending of delawing being readily available on demand.

Ruth I really feel that you may have saved some cats with Sebastians diary. It so needed to be written and you’ve done it!

There will hopefully be some purrs of joy out there thanks to you.

I’m so happy that Sebby has found a loving mom again; I’ll miss him though, he was so real but its so sad thats just what the real cats go through every day. Makes me want to weep when I think of them.

I hope and pray that those who were thinking of de-clawing their poor cat don’t after they’ve read about Sebby.

Well done Ruth, you are honestly an inspiration.

Oh the tears that flowed again, but with happiness for Sebastian. Thank you Thank you for such a heart wrenching story. I spoke to my vet in South Africa and although he admitted that when he was young and stupid he had done declawing, he has stopped the practise now for many many years and said he had been ignorant of the pain and suffering that he had inflicted, but is now rehabilitated…Thank God…

Thank you so very much Ruthy, for giving Sebastian such a lovely Mum and Dad, It is such a relief to know he will live out his days now with kindess, security and love.
I will miss Sebastian sooo much, as i am sure all his readers will.
I know how very hard for you it was to write Sebastian’s story. You are so brave to write and tell the world abour Sebastian, and all cats who go through such dreadful torture, through human ignorance and profit making.
Notice to all you who carry out such cruelty….
We are on your case, and we will not give up until you STOP de-clawing cats.
Our message to you is, read Sebstian’s story!
You all make me feel ashamed that you are part of the human race, carrying out this vicious and painful act for profit.
SHAME ON YOU!

Thank you so very much Ruthy, for giving Sebastian such a lovely Mum and Dad, It is such a relief to know he will live out his days now with kindess, security and love.
I will miss Sebastian sooo much, as i am sure all his readers will.
I know how very hard for you it was to write Sebastian’s story. You are so brave to write and tell the world abour Sebastian, and all cats who go through such dreadful torture, through human ignorance and profit making.
Notice to all you who carry out such cruelty….
We are on your case, and we will not give up until you STOP de-clawing cats.
Our message to you is, read Sebstian’s story!
You all make me feel ashamed that you are part of the human race, carrying out this vicious and painful act for profit.
SHAME ON YOU!

There was no way I dare kill Sebastian off as I’d have had the ‘troops’ after me ha ha
Anyway I couldn’t bear to write a sad ending as he had become almost real to me and there’s enough sadness in this life already.
I wish I could have given him his claws back but miracles like that don’t happpen, once gone, they’re gone forever.
I hope pro declaw people reading this will now think twice, three times,or as many times as it takes, to realise just how cruel it is to declaw cats.

I have to agree with Maggie in that almost all declawed cats with problems don’t end up in a happy home.We know that most are killed or caged forever.
But I think Ruth knew we would all be devastated if Sebastian was killed after we’d all got so fond of him.
One thing for sure I couldn’t have tackled the daunting task of writing all that stuff.

I’m going to miss that wondrous cat lol

Firstly, THANK YOU SO MUCH, RUTH! Not only have you done a wonderful job at writing this Diary, but you also took it on when I couldn’t. You took it on with dedication, concern and so much passion, regardless of how hard and heart braking Sebastian’s story was.

It’s wonderful to see Sebastian off with a happy ending. But I must say that Sebby is part of a minority, very few declawed cats finish with a happy ending. Most are dumped by their useless owners to suffer, or are euthanised. It’s a cruel, horrific and unnecessary fate, of which no cat should suffer. Sebby was very lucky indeed!!

Thank you for making a happy ending for Sebastian.
I couldn’t imagine how there could be one unless he woke up from a long horrible nightmare and found he was still living at his first moms.

All I hope is that anyone coming across this diary who thinks declawing is OK,changes thier mind.

What with those dreadful pictures of the cats just after declawing and this eye opener,ther must be a lot more people know who know the truth.

Great idea Maggie and I say Ruth has done it more than justice.

I’m so glad that Sebastian finally found a forever home with genuine cat lovers. I only wish this were true for the tens of thousands of cats who’ve had to suffer being declawed. This is why the battle to ban declawing in North America is one that I will support until my last breath.

I’m so glad that Sebastian finally found a forever home with genuine cat lovers. I only wish this were true for the tens of thousands of cats who’ve had to suffer being declawed. This is why the battle to ban declawing in North America is one that I will support until my last breath.

I love that little phantom cat! His story has been so sad and he’s written it so well. Today when I read the ending which turned out as good as it could possibly be without his precious toe-ends I wanted to sit and cry for all the trusting little cats that come to us and have no choice but to put themselves in our hands and live with the consequences. Sometimes even though we love them so we make mistakes, and sometimes we do the wrong thing and then we regret it for ever because their lives are so short and so precious.

So, to those ignorant people who deliberately choose to take their healthy cat to a veterinarian and ask him to amputate the cat’s toes, ruining his life, and to those veterinarians willing to mutilate cats for money I have this message….. You are evil and I truly hate you!

I was so frightened you’d make Seb have a claw regrowth or a bone splinter.I hope he never did after he finished his diary.Imagine a poor cat having to go through another operation on his already mutilated paw.
Thank you for the happy ending.

THANK YOU so very much Ruth for making a happy ending for Sebastian.
I know you couldn’t give him his claws back but having a good forever home and the medication he needed to keep him pain free was the next best thing.
This series has taught me a lot.

Thanks Ruth for all your efforts to produce this story. And to Maggie for the concept. It has held me and like you I hope it helps to save the claws of even a few cats. I am convinced it will and for that reason it is a great success.