Tractor is a 14-year-old polydactyl cat. He has a sweet personality despite the fact that a veterinarian butchered his toes when he declawed him.
We do not know the name of his previous owners and neither do we have the name of the veterinarian who carried out the declawing operation. Tractor has been adopted into a new family from the Alaska Humane Society and he is now loved and cared for properly we are told.
Photo: Paw-prints Howls and Purrs!
The key to the future happiness of this sweet male cat is to make sure that he is not in any pain because of the declawing operation. Many people by now know that veterinarians sometimes carry out the declawing operation carelessly and too quickly leaving shards of bone inside the paw causing chronic pain or claw regrowth under the skin. There are veterinarians who carry out reconstructive surgery when this happens.
Photo: Paw-prints Howls and Purrs!
This story was posted on Alaska’s KAAAT Facebook webpage.
Photo: Paw-prints, Howls and Purrs!
It is the first time that I’ve seen the declawed toes of a polydactyl cat and the photographs, I think you will agree, are horrendous. To think that a qualified veterinarian who is under an oath to never do anything against the welfare and health of an animal could did this. It makes me want to weep and scream and scratch my head to figure out how it could happen. We know money is at the heart of the problem but where is the regulation of these veterinarian? If their association had teeth and ethics they would uphold the ethics of their veterinarian members and ensure that their oath was complied with. They do not. The system fails and to an outsider it is a shocking state of affairs.
The practice of declawing absolutely horrifies me. It is obviously barbaric and totally unnecessary. This archaic procedure needs to be banned the world over. My heart aches for every cat that has to endure declawing, and especially for those whose must spend every day suffering with resultant abnormal toes and feet.😭😱
I completely concur with you Frances. It is something which horrifies me and which I have fought against the entire time that I have managed this website. The odd thing is that it only happens in North America. In America and Canada. And it happens less in Canada than in America. Nova Scotia, a province in Canada, have just banned it. I’m waiting for California or New York or New Jersey to ban it and then there will be a domino effect and other states will follow. Finally this aberration in the American culture will one day be history. Americans are the greatest cat lovers in the world. It is, therefore, surprising that declawing exists at all.
How can the declaw procedure even exist in America? Most likely the number one reason is commercialism. Appalling and disgusting but true.😱😰
Yes money and sad to say a lack of ethical standards.
If they had teeth, ethics and claws… unlike the poor cats. Once again, I wish for frontier justice, which would chop off the vet’s fingers at the first knuckles.
I can get quite aggressive when I think about vets declawing cat. It never ceases to shock and sadden me.