Whew!
First, Lib, my vet gave me the same advice “Do it while they are young and small, they heal faster”. Hope that helps with the original OP.
As to other issues, sorry folks, my cat is declawed. The story is as follows:
Leaving the driving range one evening, I sit down behind my car to remove my golf shoes. A small black and white kitten crawls out from underneath my car, jumps into my lap, curls up into a little ball and begins to purr. My first thought is “I don’t want a cat.” My second thought, “Tough sh*t, buddy, you’ve been picked.” Several hours later after a couple of emergency phone calls to friends who were cat owners, the kitten (now named Elivra), Gabrielle (my then 4 year old White German Shepard) and I were trying to get to know one another. Things did NOT go well at first. Gabby weighs in excess of 80 lbs. and Elvira weighed maybe a pound a half. She was quite terrified, whereas Gabby was more intrigued. Jump to the next morning, I wake up and Gabby has an inch-long deep scratch that starts JUST below her right eye. After a visit to vet for each of them (Gabby for the scratch, Elivra on general principles), I learn that Elivra is feline leukemia positive. No current cat owner can take her without endangering their other cats and the shelter will put her to sleep immediately. Guess what? Rather than have her blind my dog and rather than kill her, I got her declawed. That was more than 2 years ago. She’s still around. She and Gabby settled down and became friends (after almost a month!) and we all live happily together. In this one particular instance, declawing saved her life. See, I didn’t want a cat, but took her in anyway. Sounds to me like Runt might be in the same boat. Claws or no claws, hats to off to Lib and Edlyn for taking her (him?) in!
grem