Ruth, one of the country’s staunchest advocates against declawing, forwarded a couple of photographs to me of a red, spotted tabby-and-white cat being declawed together with a photograph of the cat after being declawed. The screenshot is below.
Jim, a visitor comments (see below): “The woman on the left is the vet and the one who, according to the post, threw the severed cat toes at a third person, apparently a student intern, who was the one who took the photo and wrote the comments. The cat on the right is not the same cat as the one on the left…but apparently was subjected to declawing. It’s still very disturbing and discouraging.” This clears things up. My description off the photos is not accurate with respect to the parties but it does not change what is happening with respect to ethics and moral code.
Perhaps I needn’t add words to this page but I will add a few. I am compelled to. I presume the photograph on the left shows the veterinarian and his assistant declawing this cat. I don’t know the name of the person who made the comments which are below the photograph but they are crass beyond belief and appear to be made by the vet. The behaviour of this couple of medics during the declawed operation is highly objectionable. It is nauseous.
The veterinarian is laughing at the fact that his assistant threw at him the fragments of bone and the claws that had been amputated from this cat’s smashed toes. He actually finds it amusing. Amusing for God’s sake! Only a vet who is completely desensitised to the reality of what he is doing could behave in this manner. And then to post the photos online. Extraordinary. Update: Please read the comments by Ruth on this as she has a better grasp of the ‘players’. This article was written from the screenshot alone.
In the picture on the right we see the aftermath of the declawing operation. This is the classic, fearful, racked with pain, face and posture of a cat who has suffered 10 amputations at the same time, which all took place within about 15 minutes and therefore the operation is quite likely a botch. The vet or assistant finds the photo amusing for some macabre reason.
I am shocked and I am in despair because these vets certainly do not care and by that I mean the vets who genuinely believe that declawing is acceptable and which is part of their culture. Shame on him and her. They are not fit to be veterinary medics.
To be an excellent vet you have to have empathy with the patient. That is as important as knowledge and skill. It is also telling that a trainee vet (if I am correct) is doing the operation. It tells us how routine and unimportant it is to the clinic.
This is unethical behavior by professionals that took a oath and should be retrained in compassion and loose their license.
I agree, Sue, that people who care about cats should not make presumptions and sweeping statements. Neither should they rant and rave because it paints a picture of cat lovers as too emotional and not pragmatic enough. However, it seems to me, with the greatest of respect, that you are also making sweeping statements because you refer to “we” throughout your welcome comment.
You appear to be representing all the veterinarians in the USA. For the past 8 years I have written about declawing and there are many veterinarians who have a callous approach to declawing. Some of them promote it with discounts, for example. Nearly every vet in the USA declaws cats. There are some that don’t but as a proportion of the whole it is a very low percentage.
The declaw operation is intrinsically against the oath of the veterinarian and unethical. Just doing it is wrong and callous never mind laughing about it at the same time. That said, once again I agree that cat lovers should be cautious in their words when they criticise veterinarians who declaw.
Pages tagged with declawing cats.
There is a lot of frustration. Nothing is changing. Millions of cats are declawed. The vets defend bans on declawing with lies saying that it saves lives by reducing abandonments. It is horrible and blatantly wrong. It is time the vets stopped. No ifs and buts or maybes.
Thanks for commenting. It is appreciated.
I’d like to add my 2 cents worth. I am a vet. I do not perform declaws. Or any other procedure done for non-medical reasons. The picture of the kitten in the cage is indeed heartbreaking as she is clearly terrified.
I had a little buff tabby in yesterday for a spay and she too was so very scared and postured in the same way. We picked her up and held her and loved on her and she was soon purring and making biscuits. She was also very happy after her procedure and no longer acted scared. We did not take her picture before she had been calmed but had we done that you might think that we were also cruel and heartless.
I don’t think you should make such huge leaps of conjecture based on a photo as you don’t know what happened before or after the photo. I understand that passions run strong and declawing or any form of animal abuse or neglect can be infuriating, nauseating, etc.
But suggesting that any particular veterinary care worker should be throat-punched or strung up is counterproductive and makes whoever says it sound a little over the top. As far as throwing the claws automatically meaning the workers are heartless is probably incorrect. We do make jokes a lot. If we didn’t we would succumb to the stress and sadness of the job.
We may make a joke about how a tumor we just removed looks like a brain or some such thing and laugh about it, even though that dog is likely going to die from the tumor having metastasized to the liver. That doesn’t mean we are not heartbroken about the dog and her illness. We are serious most of the time and we cry a lot of tears and carry home in our hearts a great deal of stress and sadness. We try to lighten the mood when we can. We get excited when we get a “good” abscess. That doesn’t mean we wish the cat with the abscess any ill will.
We want to make him well, but we will have fun with the abscess in the meantime. You might not understand that unless you work in the field. we have to find humor and fun when and where we can, but I guarantee you that the vast majority of veterinary workers are in the field because they have great love of and passion for the animals. And we are not laughing all the way to the bank.
The entire field is grievously underpaid. I am on your side. I am part of the no declaw movement and am for animal rights and an end to kill shelters and improvements in the way farm animals are treated and a stop to animal experimentation, etc, etc. But, I caution you to use your indignation to make changes and not just rant and rave. That only makes people think us animal lovers are all stark-raving lunatics.
I understand the need for venting. I do it as well. I’m doing it now. It does bother me when people make broad assumptions about things that they really do not know the facts about. I am an evil, money-grubbing person according to many because I insist on being paid for services.
I did declaw at one time because when I cam out of vet school it was just a given that that is what was done. At that time there was no discussion about there being long-term pain and behavior issues. I didn’t like doing it but I didn’t like doing anything that caused pain, even necessary things. Still don’t. But I have to hurt animals in order to help them.
I posted on the AVMA’s Facebook timeline.
Curious to see if they delete it.
What we can do, even from other countries, even only to like the Paw Project page will help…..
All we can do is fight to get declawing stopped, a ban would take the smile off the faces of those who think it’s funny.