by Michael
(London, UK)
13th January 2011: The Paw Project have published a new video. Thank you, The Paw Project! The more the better, I say.
I really like this video. These are my reasons why. I would like others to tell me why they like it. Some visitors might dislike it – fine. Let’s hear your reasons too.
A good anti-declaw video should address the root problems that allow cat declawing to take place in the United States and Canada, when it is outlawed in Europe and unheard of in Asia, South America and Africa. The Paw Project video does that.
It seems to me that the one of the core reasons why declawing exists is the combined effect of a public, the cat “owners”, who are ignorant of the true nature and consequences of cat declawing and veterinarians, driven by financial profit, who subtly mislead their clients. Indeed many actively encourage the unnecessary operation. There are other underlying reasons – the declawing disconnect.
The people who chose to have their cat declawed find a way of justifying it. It is a sort of mind game that ignores the total immorality of it. Vets play a similar game and ignore the unethical nature of what they do.
For me, this video addresses all the above issues. Importantly it is filmed from the point of view of the cat. This is most important as it allows the viewer to see the process of client/vet consultation and the after effect of the operation from the cat’s perspective. The cat is the client or patient ultimately. Vets forget that. In the video the cat is seen as a victim of the collaboration of two people, the human client, the cat’s owner, and the veterinarian. The client is unsure and lacks knowledge and the confident vet is a past master at encouraging the client to part with the money.
The veterinarian is speaking reassuringly about how the cat will feel after the operation, “he’ll be a bit sensitive when he wakes up…” And he says, “it’s a common procedure..”
The latter is intended to reassure the human client that there is nothing to be concerned about and the former remark misleads on the pain and consequences.
All is well between client and veterinarian. All is unwell with the cat. This is the disconnect. By “disconnect” I mean a lack of empathy with the cat by both parties.
The video nicely shows up the difference between what the humans are doing and what they think is happening, a sort of comfortable fiction, and the cat who lives in the harsh land of reality, the loss of the tips of all the toes of his forepaws, excruciating pain, phantom pain, possible arthritis, defenselessness, loss of ability to scratch (a natural desire) etc.
And it is a short video. All of us who make videos for the internet know that they should be as short as possible as the attention span of modern man is getting shorter and shorter.
Thank you The Paw Project. Go to the YouTube page where the video is to leave a comment there too if you wish.
Selected related pages:
See full list of visitor’s articles on declawing
