What are you running a cats home? I have only had two cats over a period of 42 years Pepe was 23 and Sunday was 19 when they passed
My son has a facial scar. He was about eight months, and fell in one of those clumsy infant moments - onto the cat. I was watching him, but I was also not right on top of him and I was pregnant - and cats and clumsy babies can both move surprisingly fast.
One thing that people strongly against declaw will need to understand is what the consequences will be if you can’t declaw your cat. More cats will be surrendered. More cats will have to be euthanized. Some people will choose to have nice furniture over a cat - meaning fewer homes for cats. Some people will get two cats - and have one tear the shit out of the other - and have to be surrendered (when my husband and I moved in together, my cat was definitely an only cat - after giving his cat three abscesses, we declawed her. It was that or have her put down.)
My current cat gets her nails trimmed- and is a sweetheart about it. And she has three scratching posts. And her favorite thing to scratch is still the carpet or the back of my grandmothers chair (which is uglier than crap - and is giving me a good excuse). We’ve done softpaws - she can still get under the carpet loops. I’m just not bothering to replace my carpet until we sell the house - in which case we will buy one, move the cat, replace the carpet, and sell this one. Not everyone has the luxury.
So you have to decide - yes declawing is major surgery and painful for the cat - but is that worth a long continued life as a pampered house pet - or is that so bad that the cat would be better off dead. I think the two cats I had to declaw enjoyed their post delaw years - after recovery - as much as the two I haven’t had to declaw.
So, my friend who lost a leg to an IED in the Middle East would have been better off blown up than face a lifetime of mutilation? I’m not sure he’d agree. Human beings who have lost limbs or lost sight or lost their hearing have painful recoveries - and I’m sure they always miss what they had, but they go on to live full and meaningful lives. Why wouldn’t cats?
Because cats are not humans.
No obviously not. But shouldn’t they have some sanctity of life? And because they aren’t humans and can’t communicate, shouldn’t their owners who know them best be the ones making that determination for them rather than a stranger?
From birth to my current age of almost 55 I’ve had not zillions of cats, but many, many more than your average cat owner. I have not seen the need to mutilate my friends just in case they might damage furniture or accidentally scratch me. They all led/are leading long happy lives showing no ill effects from having their claws trimmed regularly, being given scratching towers, and access to a safe pen outdoors with bark covered logs to scratch on and room to run & blow off steam.
Lets do this the other direction.
Let’s say my pampered fully clawed housecat - who is a complete sweetheart (other than the carpet thing…and the thinking 5am is breakfast time thing) manages to get out of the house when my seventeen year old is handling his pizza delivery (cause that never happens). She manages to get into a fight with another cat and loses and eye - because she’d be quite lousy at a cat fight. When she comes back, should I take her to the vet and just have her put down because she is now mutilated and her recovery will be painful? Or should I have them take the eye and sew up the socket, treat her with antibiotics, and let her continue to lie on my bed in the sunshine for the next ten years?
Do you feel the same way about neutering a male dog?
Comparing a human who chose to go to war and paid a devastatingly huge price with a cat who’s owner wants to save the furniture is like comparing apples to freight trains. The human KNOWS why they hurt, and can decide whether or not it was worth it. The cat has no choice, period.
And I do not think that death is the worst thing that can happen to anyone, man or animal. There are far worse fates out there…
Again, not really a good comparison. That eye needed to come out, you were not doing it for your own convenience but to save your cat more suffering. OBVIOUSLY sometimes radical surgery is necessary for the creature’s wellbeing! I own a 3-legged dog. She was found with a coyote trap on her foot, and the paw and leg were too mangled to save. I would infinitely have prefferred to save the leg, but it wasn’t to be. So removing the leg was necessary.
Declawing Is Not Necessary in 99.9% of cases. Yes, I can envision a scenario where it might need to be done, but MOST often it is done for the convenience of the owner, and THAT is what is barbaric.
But declawing might be necessary for me to keep my cat - otherwise I’ll have her euthanized. Is it necessary - no. But if a person’s choices are their furniture or their cat, and they chose their furniture, the cat is likely dead.
And yes, you can say they shouldn’t have made the choice to get a cat in the first place - but how will you stop them. And even if you do stop them, there will be thousands of cats that we don’t have room in shelters for that would be adoptable to people who would like a declawed cat.
So yes, it is necessary in aggregate unless you want to euthanize more unplaceable cats.
Not to totally derail, but I kind of put this in the same category with male circumcision – they are both painful, both have minor justifications/rationalizations, but both are ultimately unnecessary.
However, in the greater scheme of things, victims of each can still live happy, productive lives. I won’t go out of my way to demonize perpetrators of them, and I won’t argue to make either illegal (though I could see that coming in either case). I might try to inform/educate someone considering either action to try to talk them out of it.
Straw man much?
I didn’t spay my cat and neuter my ex-feral tom cat for my convenience, I did it because there is an over-population of cats, and I didn’t want to be a part of the problem.
You can’t convince me that removing my finger tips would be the same thing as my sterilization.
I felt conflicted about neutering my boy, because he was already middle aged and I was changing everything about his life, but I feel worse about the fact of healthy cats living short and violent feral lives.
In my area we do trap, neuter, release.
I didn’t release him because he chose to stay with us. Literally, would not leave.
So many countries don’t declaw, we don’t have a bigger stray problem than the U.S., so logic dictates that it doesn’t lead to more homeless cats long term.
Human and animal amputees can and do live wonderful and satisfying lives, but as a medical necessity. ( No Apotemnophilia gotcha please.)
Neutering is a medical necessity for cats as a species.
Sod people’s couches.
Neutering is not necessary as a species. Leave your cat indoors and if you have multiple cats, don’t mix genders. Your cats shouldn’t be going outside anyway.
You wouldn’t know this, T-minus, seeing as how you’re new and all, but you’ve accidentally stumbled onto a subject that is of some controversy on the boards.
Anyone up for a round of “shoes on or off in the house?” yet?
As another poster said “A pet is not an accessory or a toy, they require WORK, even the best of them. If you aren’t willing to put in the time necessary for training and socialization then stick with the stuffed animals on your bed.”
Perhaps instead of cutting the balls off of male cats and dogs, you simply watched them to make sure they didn’t impregnate another cat or dog? Pets require WORK you know!
Neutering is NOT a medical necessity.
And I would rather lose my fingertips than other choice parts of my anatomy.
Toilet paper roll position
Planes on a treadmill.
Here’s the page this is from, the Good Doctor makes some more excellent points.
This point rings true for me, they’re cats, declawing them makes them into something other than a cat. I’ve not owned “zillions” of them, the most I’ve ever had at one time was 57, so I’m hardly an expert. I also think the whole “I’m protecting my furniture” argument is totally bogus, the furniture may look nice, but it will reek of cat-piss. You’ll need to remove all the scent glands as well. Cats have fur and they shed, maybe you’ll need to keep it shaved as well.
Or better just don’t have animals in your home if you don’t want your home to look (and smell) like a barn.
I like to fancy my cats as a hunting clowder. It’s surprisingly difficult to pull this off, but razor-sharp claws are a definite necessity. It’s an amazing sight to see a lil’ house cat jump into the air and snag a blue-jay. That’s what cats do, if you don’t like it, don’t get a cat.
ETA: I can’t believe I’m doing this, but here’s PETA’s take on the matter, please forgive me …
Ok. Going to have to be a back and forth. Sorry OP.
In the UK, cats go outside. That’s just the way it is. I know that the U.S. has cat-eating predators, but our cats go outside. The largest rescue charities won’t rehome a cat if it won’t be let out. (Deafness and other disabilities nonwithstanding.)
Not spaying or neutering is the main cause of feral cats, who can spread like wildfire, and live short miserable lives.
Only the higher mammals have sex for fun, cats don’t, so they’re not missing out.
Many women have had hysterectomies and still want sex, and men who have had medically necessary orchiectomy, want medical help to try to have sex, so we are not the same at all.
Sex is not a choice for the lower mammals, it’s a hormone driven urge, only for procreation. So we have to neuter, so that we can try to stop ferals happening.
So your cats stay in, predators dictate that. Scratching posts, teach kittens to allow nail trimming, accept some damage. Mutilation shouldn’t be the answer.