A study has found that there has been no increase in surrendered cats following British Columbia’s declawing ban. When veterinarians who declaw defend their behaviour in debates about banning declawing – usually at discussions before a proposed citywide ban or state ban – they invariably say that declawing saves the lives of cats because it stops cat owners relinquishing them to cat shelters where they are euthanized. That’s their argument. They are saying that because a cat owner is being scratched, they would abandon their cat if they can’t get them declawed. This has been proved to be entirely false. It is a propaganda lie, in fact, designed to tug at the heartstrings of the politicians who are debating the ban.
Why am I so sure? Because a study of 74,587 cats in British Columbia concluded that there has been no significant change in the number of surrendered cats in BC since 2018 when declawing was prohibited by law.
If the vets were right there would have been an immediate and noticeable jump in the number of surrendered cats, but no.
This study should put a stop to this ridiculous claim by the unscrupulous vets who carry out this operation. I would hope that other legislatures who’ve been considering a declaw ban now bring it back to the debating chamber and get on with making it law.
There is no defence to a total ban on declawing for non-therapeutic reasons (99% of declaws are non-therapeutic and for convenience), as all that flows from declawing is bad and negative. There is nothing to support it. There never has been, but the study should be the nail in the coffin of this aberrant veterinary surgical procedure that should never have been invented.
Its invention was always a cynical ploy to pull the wool over the eyes of a gullible section of cat owners to convince them that they can live without fear of being scratched (or their precious furniture), without cost to the cat’s health and wellbeing.
There is a massive cost to the cat’s health. Many declaw operations are botched. Many cats suffer constant discomfort. They tend to bite more. They can develop arthritis. Damn it, cats walk on their toes. What do you expect to happen to them when some mad butcher of a vet removes the tips of all ten of their toes with a guillotine in a 15-minute operation? Think how a person would feel if they lost the ends of all their toes from the last joint in an operation that lasted 15 bloody minutes! And humans don’t walk on their toes.
The truth is that cats are normally surrendered for reasons such as housing problems, human health issues and financial issues.
Dr Emilia Gordon said at a press release dated Sept 13th 2021:
“We hope this data can be used by veterinarians, veterinary regulators, animal shelters, and community members to support bans against unnecessary and painful cosmetic surgeries and to begin discussions about how we address the systemic issues in our society that separate families from their pets.”
Please God, give the lawmakers the moral strength to ban this unnecessary operation now.
Note: British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. With an estimated population of 5.1 million.
SOME MORE ON COMPLICATIONS OF DECLAWING:
