I have three cats, all of whom have declawed front paws.
It was done when they were kittens and it was not cruel. They were running and jumping(against our “advice”) the next day. They have never felt pain, discomfort, or anything.
I’m not sure they even know it was done. They still try to “sharpen” them on furniture. It’s cute!
In my opinion, it is cruel and unethical, for all the reasons mentioned above.
If I recall correctly, you just ordered some custom leather furniture and are concerned about it? Hate to say it but you’re right to be concerned. Leather furniture + cats = disaster. Unless you can keep the cats entirely away from the furniture, you’re screwed. If they jump up on the furniture, you WILL have scratches and holes and the like from their back claws.
I had some success with putting aluminum foil over my leather couches–the cats wouldn’t jump up on the couch with the foil there. Key words being: with the foil there. Once the foil came off they’d hop on the couch and curl up to sleep. So I had lovely leather furniture that was always covered in foil. (Made for some fun explanations to delivery men and the like though. “The space rays damage the leather, don’t you know that?”)
Try the SoftPaws or something if you have to keep the leather furniture. Or give them to a home without leather furniture.
The difference of course being a neighbourhood full of unwanted kittens that end up being put down at the local animal shelter (on a good day, some get drowned in a plastic bag of course), versus… a scratched up couch.
We have two male cats, both neutered. Whilst I feel bad about that procedure (poor little fuckers never got to even enjoy the deed), it makes sense in that two adolescent male cats will try to kill each other. Moreover, being outside cats (at least since we moved) they’d impregnate the entire neighbourhood, catwise.
Declawing them? No way in hell. Cats need their claws for defence, climbing, balance, hunting. If yours are indoor cats, and you need to modify them to suit your interior design, get a hamster in a cage or something.
And yes, the procedure is illegal in most European countries, as is for example the clipping of ears and tails on dogs. Just because we own them doesn’t mean we get to mutilate them at our whim.
Well the furniture comes tomorrow and I will see what happens. We ar not going to declaw them - we’ve decided if we witness an attempt they’ll get the squirt gun. Thank you for all the answers, I knew I could count on a decent cross section of people owned by their feline overlords. 
Hi Coldfire - it’s been awhile.
We do, actually, “spay” and “neuter” humans - there are adult human who CHOOSE to have it done. I don’t know of anyone who volunteers to have all their fingertips removed, do you?
Good luck–seriously. And good on you for deciding not to declaw!
Maybe not, but I’ll bet you’d want them on birth control.
Sailboat
Want? Yes. Force? No. That was my point. I see no ethical problem with forcing things on my pets that I wouldn’t force on a fellow human being.
But human beings use their fingers extensively to manipulate objects. Cats use their end bones on their paws for balance while walking, but adapt rather quickly to not having them. Its probably a little more like a woman who gets a boob job or plastic surgery to please the guy in her life. Its painful, it isn’t necessary, there is a level of risk, it may impact some of your fuctionality for a bit (or forever), but most people will adapt. Most cats adapt to a declaw.
Anecdotes != facts. I grew up with 2 cats that were declawed (front paws only) and they never bit - period! One lived to be 18, the other 21,and they didn’t behave any different after the surgeries.
I think the whole thing is overblown but for what its worth the two kitties I have now are not declawed and won’t be.
I know this :rolleyes: I said, YMMV. You gave your personal experiences, and I gave mine.
Cats use their claws for a variety of reasons, including manipulating objects. My cat is a champion snagger - she can grab stuff like no other cat I have seen. They also use their claws for defense, which (in some cats, sometimes) leads to the increase in biting after their claws are gone. Not all cats “adapt quickly.”
Did I say ALL cats “adapt quickly?” A cat may manipulate objects with his paws - when a cat starts writing or knitting, give me a call and we can have a discussion about how comparative this is with human fingers and how like declawing is to cutting off human fingertips.
We had an adult cat laser declawed, for two reasons:
Our other two cats (both of whom we had from kitten-hood) are very gentle with their claws and will darn near hold their paws up for the trimming. With Kitty 3 (who we didn’t get until she was a couple years old), she was very agressive with her claws and she literally screamed and struggled as if for her life anytime and any way we tried to trim them. We tried for 2 years to deal with her other ways, because she was such a sweet cat and we were very anti-declawing.
She was tender for a day or two after the surgery, but she was running around and jumping on and off stuff pretty quickly. Within a week or two you would never know that her life had been anything but clawless; years later, she still has really good flexibility in her paws, and nothing seems to be painful or bothersome for her. No one will ever be able to convince me that it was more cruel to remove her claws than to continue to traumatize her by trimming them. When I think back on it, I actually feel really bad that we waited so long to do it.
For that one cat, it was absolutely the right thing to do; it hasn’t been the right thing to do for our other cats, but I will certainly consider it for future cats if I think it is the right thing for the cat.
Day and night #1 with new leather couches…so far they like the smell, but no clawing at all. Lot’s of padding the leather, like rubbing it smoohly with no claws extended. So I am hoping my hypothesis of the leather not sticking to their claws thus making them want to scratch is holding up.
Hope it holds - we’ve skipped leather with pets just because even if they don’t scratch, a friends cat would leave little puncture marks with its back claws when she jumped off. We don’t have cats anymore, but now we have a large dog who gets his nails trimmed less often than ideal.
We trim our cats talons every two to three weeks. The person at the furniture place assured us their claws wouldn’t go thought the leather. I’m not so sure, as I understand sales people, their sales people afterall.
Sorry 'bout that Skara, I missed your YMMV. :smack:
Mine don’t go through the leather, but the little scratches are visible. They add up. I’ve noticed many new little scratches since we got our kitten in December. The older cats are more apt to walk and less likely to leave marks, it seems.
I inherited 2 cats who’d had their front claws removed. They lived long & happy lives as indoor cats. One of them “play” bit–but not with intent to hurt. The other was a gentle soul who would never bite. Unless you stepped on him accidentally & really deserved it…
This is not an endorsement of declawing, which I think should be done as the absolute last resort. But don’t be afraid of adopting a declawed cat!