My instinctive (unspoken) response is that I don't believe in mutilating helpless creatures on the off-chance that they might damage some inanimate object in my house. However, my more polite response is that my cats are perfectly happy with their scratch posts (a bit of catnip helps).
The fact is that de-clawing is cruel. Cats need their claws for a number of innate activities like scratching, climbing, balancing, playing, kneading, and defending themselves.
De-clawing removes all ten front claws AND part of the paw itself. Cats need their whole paw - it isn't a superfluous extremity that can just be cut off.
Alanna
3 comments:
You're absolutely right, why on earth should cats lose the ends of their toes because people care more about furniture than living creatures. It's exactly the same in the USA, people think that declawing is on a par with neutering and vaccination and vets offer it as part of a package to people who sometimes don't even realise what declawing entails. If declawing is so wonderful why then is it banned in 38 countries (including England where I live) and considered grossly inhumane? How do people imagine we manage, and have managed all our lives, to have both cats and nice homes? It drives me, and my family and friends, mad.
Is there anything going on in Canada to try and get declawing banned?
Bravo on not declawing. Folks that think it is the "right thing" to do have no idea about the cruelty they are perpetrating on their cats.
Purrsonally, if furniture is more important than the health and happiness of a living, breathing animal, then they are not cat lovers. They are only cat owners.
Thanks for a great post.
Jo
Coming from the UK, I had never heard of declawing until I joined an internet cat forum. I was absolutely horrified when I learned that it involved the amputation of healthy toes. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would ever inflict such cruelty on the very animal they are meant to be caring for.
Good on you for speaking up against it. I dream of the day when declawing is made illegal everywhere.
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