I have been give a cat. It is fixed and declawed in the front. The first thing I noticed was, he compensat6ed by biting more when we roughhouse. He is a sweet and fun cat. But,can he chase and kill meeces. or do I have a feline paperweight.?
I know of a declawed cat who catches mice, squirrels, birds and small snakes and proudly leaves many “gifts” for his humans. :rolleyes: He may be somewhat exceptional, though.
Yes they can.
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All right, all right. Sorry for being uncouth. When I first got my cat he was intended to be an indoor cat. So for the sake of all the furniture we got him declawed. 5 years later we moved to a neighborhood that was a little more friendly. The last one had a lot of mean cats and dogs across the street so we didn’t want him roaming around ‘undefended’.
When we moved we decided to transition him to being an indoor/outdoor cat. Letting him in and out as he pleases (emphasis on whenever he pleases), but we always made sure to bring him in at night. And I must report that even without claws he started, very quickly, to bring us little gifts (remains). We still worried about him getting into fights but surprisingly he’s been in a couple and holds his own fine with no major injury ever.
Hopes this helps. Almost to 200 posts!
When I was a kid, our cat, who was not only declawed but already old by this time, caught a mouse and brought it in as a present for my mother. We never did figure out how that decrepit geezer of a cat managed to catch something. Unfortunately, he hadn’t finished killing the mouse, and when my mother went to pick up the mouse it ran off under the sofa. That mouse stayed in the house for a couple of days before mom managed to let it out of the house. The cat spent this time skulking around the sofa, looking for any sign of his prey. Mom and dad decided that the cat wasn’t allowed outside any more, which frankly was something they should have done years before.
Very much so. My calico is declawed (in the front), and she’s a killer.
This cat has taken out rabbits twice her size… And she’s not big. She’s on the smaller-end of an adult housecat.
She’s brought in live rabbits, voles, birds and mice. Back at my old house, if we let her out, I would find a circle of dead mice around our back shed (really creepy)
Did you get sick of opening the door for him, only to have him peer outside and then after an inordinate amount of time, turn around and stay inside?
Cats train people better than Cesar Milan does. There is only one way… may I borrow your weapon?
The front claws aren’t needed much for small prey. The cat will pounce and hold down the prey with front paws. The kill is almost always done with a bite to the neck.
Yes, I have observed that over the years. One of our present cats, an indoor guy who weighs 15 lbs, is all muscle. When capturing a thrown toy, he pounces on it so hard with his front paws that I’m sure he would stun any live prey.
I had a very small calico as well (I don’t think she weighed more than 5 pounds as an adult) who was declawed. As we had a pretty large backyard in a safe neighborhood, she was an indoor/outdoor cat. There’s not a lot to catch in the middle of Albuquerque besides mice and birds, but she managed to get both, including one kill I saw that involved her taking down a pigeon with her back claws and teeth.
I inherited a small declawed tabby a few years ago. She is a stone cold killer. She will occasionally catch a mouse and hide its battered corpse in my husband’s shoe, but more commonly she is more of an area-effect weapon. When she kills a mouse, it usually looks like it was dropped into a blender. At least, I think they were mice. Mammals, for sure. She also kills hornets, some flies, spiders, centapedes, pens, paper towels, three hole punch units and remote controls
I had a declawed cat who caught several mice. So sure, it’s possible.
We have an outdoor-only cat that’s declawed. He catches mice with no problem.