Declawing cats

[GeekPrincess]

I would never declaw a cat. One of mine decided some of our furniture was more fun that his scratching post. We didn't declaw him, just worked to stop the unwanted behavior.
There are a lot of ways to keep a cat from scratching that don't involve hurting them.

 

[gertieshmertz]

I think declawing is horrible. My mom's friend had her cat declawed, and when I told her no it's not just pulling the nail out (which btw, OWWWW!!) it is cutting part of the toe off, she just got kinda rude about it. I also disagree to a certain extent with ear and tail docking. To me, there is no reason that a dogs ears would ever need to be cut, but it some case, the tails do need to be docked. We had a rat terrier that we got from a friend, and he was "purebred" but was litterally everything you DON'T want in a pure bred. Our friend got him for free, and after seeing how he acted, gave him to us. Anyways, he had a docked tail, and when we saw pictures of him when he was first born (I'm sure our friend got him from a breeder that was throwing him out ) his tail was horribly deformed, and when the original owner took him to the vet after birth, the vet said that his tail would always be a problem and would cause him constaint pain because if how deformed it was. So while he was still under like 2 weeks old, they docked his tail so he wouldn't have the pain and deformity. Other than in cases like that, and you are just docking tails to be "cool" or look good, I am 100% against it

 

[ClemmyOddieIndy]

This is an interesting thread. A local shelter will not allow you to adopt cats for them if you intend to declaw them. However, people who want a cat and know the rules lie to the shelter. My boyfriends cousin and his wife lied to the shelter and declawed the cat they adopted. I was pretty horrified, but they don't seem to care. I think the problem is people's mentality is, "I am saving this cat, so I have the right to do what I want with it."

 

[claudinehere]

I've been considering taking in the cats outside our home but if we do take them in, we would never, ever declaw them. I don't know, we find it pretty selfish that we take away the cats's claws just because we want them to behave a certain way. It is in the cats' instincts to scratch, just like how dogs like to chew stuff. These are things that we can never take away from them. My friends have cats who have been big problems as kittens because they scratch all the fine furniture they can find, but with proper time and patience, the kitties are so well-behaved and know how to use a scratching post. See it's all in the upbringing of the cats.