Unlike you?
Its hard to justify mutilation of a sentient animal solely for the purpose of convenience.
I answered in post 1 of this thread, and didn’t forbid or command anything.
It’s good that you’re able to express your opinion, but, here, that’s all anyone has. An opinion.
Opinions are like armpits…
Anyway, I certainly have not failed to communicate clearly, the way Disgruntled Penguin seems to have. Having an opinion you don’t agree with is not a failure of expression. So, yeah: “Unlike me.”
Whatever floats your boat. Clearly this means more to you than it does to me. I concede whatever point you’re making. You win.
Then why are you even in this thread? Why are you even discussing why something should be illegal?
I came in to address the question in the original post, which I did on my first post. Everything else has been discussion. Is that not allowed on this message board? Or are you saying that I am not allowed to state my view unless I am advocating that others follow it? I was unaware of any of these restrictions.
My father was a small animal vet for forty years. I used to work for him on weekends. I never saw this, even once. So I will ask for an unbiased cite that most cats wake up screaming from a properly performed declaw, and that they don’t do this from any other surgical procedure.
How can you tell? Again, I will ask for an unbiased cite on how many cats have phantom claw pain.
Cats refuse to use a litter box for the rest of their lives, or just while their paws are healing? Again, I never heard of this, so I will need an unbiased cite.
Regards,
Shodan
When you come to bring them to me wearing 4" platforms yourself (and I was nice and lowered that from 8"). I find them about as comfortable.
I was looking at adoption requirements and one of the things you have to do is promise to not declaw. The local pet stores also require a promise to not declaw. Most of the cats I’ve known were working cats, so declawing them would have been absurd. It’s legal here among other things because there are cases where amputation is required for medical reasons, but frowned upon.
This statement (PDF) from the American Veterinary Medicine Association (see page 4) states that there’s no statistically significant incidence of behavioral changes in declawed cats. In one study, the rate of refusal to use a litter box was 15% in declawed cats and 16% in intact cats.
I’d copy/paste the relevant section except the PDF pastes weird, making each word its own line.
I wrote that poorly. The rate in the declawed cats being studied was 15%. The overall rate among all (studied) cats whether declawed or intact was 16%. Point remains that declawing did not change the percentage of cats who refuse to use a litter box.
Thanks.
I read your cite, then I woke up screaming and then went and pooped behind the sofa.
Regards,
Shodan
I eat meat. Sentient animals are killed for my dining pleasure. I don’t feel good about that, but i continue to eat meat.
I’ve never declawed a cat. But it seems like a less drastic and less invasive thing to do than spay/neuter, which all the animal-rights folks seem okay with. (Well, not all. But there are lots of people who tell me that i am evil if i declaw my cat or if i fail to neuter it.) If i had a cat that was doing tons of damage to my stuff, i would probably declaw it before I’d get rid of it.
And i certainly had my cats fixed for my convenience. Not for their well being. I imagine they would have been happy enough to breed.
Opinions may differ, but I’d rather lose my testicles than my fingers. I use the latter a lot more than the former!
Here’s what I don’t understand … you and your cat are a poor match, for whatever reason … down at your local animal shelter sits the perfect cat for you, in every way.
Why do you choose to start cutting parts off the mismatched cat and let the perfect cat spend the rest of it’s life in a small cage? Just doesn’t make sense to me.
At my local animal shelter, they were happy to declaw the cat so it could have a happy home. If some other perfect cat had been there, we’d have seen it since we were, in fact, at our local animal shelter. I guess we could have just left her in her small cage with her intact claws though. Maybe she could have used them to scratch at the metal grate cage floor – fun!
Everyone is, of course, entitled to their opinion. But to make something ILLEGAL is to make that choice for everyone else, regardless of their opinion. If you want to convince me that declawing is wrong, then do it through reason, not force.
I don’t think this is generally true. And even if the “perfect cat” is there, how would you know which it is?
I don’t think the folks who outlaw declawing care if you agree, they just don’t want you to do that to a cat.
Look at them, handle them, ask questions of the staff … based on my experiences in exactly two animal shelters, staffers are quite expert at match peoples with the proper cat, especially if you walk in with a bag of cat food thrown over your shoulder.
I’m just suggesting an alternative, if one insists on declawing cats then I understand they aren’t looking for any alternatives.
Not “hunt” but truly still hunt. Both of my cats were adopted as adults, and the one who came to me pre-declawed catches 10x as many mice in the cellar as the one who has claws.
Fair enough. The only mice we have around here are of the catnip scented variety so my little predator contents herself with “hunting” those 