Important. Please read: To us, a declawed cat is a crippled, mutilated cat, and no excuse can justify the operation. I would had never had knowingly place a kitten of ours to a home where it would be declawed and have tired to make the efforts to try to spare them from this type of mutilation. Declawing is ten to eighteen separate amputations!!!!
http://maxshouse.com/Truth%20About%20Declawing.htm
Educate Don't Mutilate.
SAVE A PAW - DON'T DECLAW
http://declaw.lisaviolet.com/declawpics.html
Photos are worth a thousands words.
Even when people have their cats declawed and say the cat has been fine afterwards etc.. etc... yes that's great, but the point is the cat had to go through this unnecessary painful and uncomfortable procedure and...the cat has no claws!.... How cat the cat be happy without his/her claws?! We wouldn't be happy without our fingernails, yes eventually we would cope and get by, but we wouldn't be happy about the fact we don't have fingernails. And fingernails are far less important to us than a cats claws are to a cat. Claws on a cat is a very important part of the anatomy. While the immediate post-surgical pain that the cats suffer is obviously severe, it is impossible to know how much chronic pain and suffering declawing causes. However, one can consider similar procedures in people. Many human amputees report life-long, painful "phantom" sensations from the amputated part. Declawing is ten to eighteen separate amputations, so it is not unreasonable to believe that declawed cats experience phantom pain in one or more toes. Cats typically conceal pain or illness until it becomes unbearable. With chronic pain, it may be that they simply learn to live with it. Their behavior may appear normal, but a lack of overt signs of pain does not mean they are pain-free.
Educate Don't Mutilate.
SAVE A PAW - DON'T DECLAW
Since scratching is a natural behavior of cats we must be prepared to accept this behavior along with the cat. Despite the fact that most cats will use designated scratching posts when provided, we must accept that occasional damage to our material belongings may result along with a few scratches to our skin. The solution to this is not to mutilate the cat but to learn acceptance. If scratching is a problem for people, it is their problem and not the cat's.
For many cat lovers declawing is unconscionable, many veterinarians will not perform the procedure, it is outlawed in some countries, and there is currently no animal welfare organizations that condone the practice including CFA.
Cats are already wonderful companions.
They do not require any surgical modifications to become the loving companions they are known as worldwide. As many, who have authorized having their cat declawed, will freely admit, it was done to prevent damage to their furniture. Cats represent a living, thinking, feeling, entity; how can we ever place their welfare on the same balance as that of our furniture. Declawing is inhumane if you really stop and think about it. No one has the right to mutilate our precious cats.
The Facts About Declawing - What You Really Need To Know
Contrary to most people's understanding, declawing consists of amputating not just the claws, but the whole phalanx (up to the joint), including bones, ligaments, and tendons! To remove the claw, the bone, nerve, joint capsule, collateral ligaments, and the extensor and flexor tendons must all be amputated. Thus declawing is not a simple, single surgery but 10 separate, painful amputations of the third phalanx up to the last joint of each toe. A graphic comparison in human terms would be the cutting off of a person's finger at the last joint of each finger. Declawing is not without complication. The rate of complication is relatively high compared with other so-called routine procedures. Complications of this amputation can be excruciating pain, damage to the radial nerve, hemorrhage, bone chips that prevent healing, painful regrowth of deformed claw inside of the paw which is not visible to the eye, and chronic back and joint pain as shoulder, leg and back muscles weaken.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Please check this website.
Here is another site: http://www.petstation.com/declaw.html
Many vets and clinic staff deliberately misinform and mislead clients into believing that declawing removes only the claws in the hopes that clients are left with the impression that the procedure is a "minor" surgery comparable to spay/neuter procedures and certainly doesn't involve amputation (partial or complete) of the terminal-toe bone, ligaments and tendons. Some vets rationalize the above description by saying that since the claw and the third phalanx (terminal toe bone) are so firmly connected, they simply use the expression "the claw" to make it simpler for clients to "understand". Other vets are somewhat more honest and state that if they used the word "amputation", most clients would not have the surgery performed! Onychectomy in the clinical definition involves either the partial or total amputation of the terminal bone. That is the only method. What differs from vet to vet is the type of cutting tool used (guillotine-type cutter, scalpel or laser).
Many who have owned cats for many, many years have seen little damage caused to property by cats scratching. We all have friends who own dogs and seen a lot of damage caused by dogs. Would this justify declawing a dog? Of course not. Just as declawing cats is totally unjustified.
What you need to know:
http://www.declawing.com/htmls/declawing.htm
These photographs illustrate in gory detail why declawing is banned or illegal and considered animal abuse in most of the civilized world. Veterinarians across North America that still perform this barbaric procedure should be deeply ashamed.
Dr. Nicholas Dodman, Professor of Behavioral Pharmacology and Director of the Behavior Clinic at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine and internationally known specialist in domestic animal behavioral research, explains declawing:
"The inhumanity of the procedure is clearly demonstrated by the nature of cats' recovery from anesthesia following the surgery. Unlike routine recoveries, including recovery from neutering surgeries, which are fairly peaceful, declawing surgery results in cats bouncing off the walls of the recovery cage because of excruciating pain. Cats that are more stoic huddle in the corner of the recovery cage, immobilized in a state of helplessness, presumably by overwhelming pain. Declawing fits the dictionary definition of mutilation to a tee. Words such as deform, disfigure, disjoint, and dismember all apply to this surgery. Partial digital amputation is so horrible that it has been employed for torture of prisoners of war, and in veterinary medicine, the clinical procedure serves as model of severe pain for testing the efficacy of analgesic drugs. Even though analgesic drugs can be used postoperatively, they rarely are, and their effects are incomplete and transient anyway, so sooner or later the pain will emerge."
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No matter what tool is used is is still a painful amputations of the third phalanx up to the last joint of each toe. Laser declawing causes less bleeding and swelling than other techniques. This reduces pain and complications in the first few days after surgery, but the long-term implications of the procedure remain the same. Declawing is the amputation of each front toe at the first joint (hind foot declaw surgery is not commonly performed on This is equivalent to a person losing the entire tip of every finger at the first knuckle. The surgery is so predictably painful that it is used to test the effectiveness of pain medications. Initial recovery takes a few weeks, but even after the surgical wounds have healed, there are often other long-term physical and psychological effects. While the immediate post-surgical pain that the cats suffer is obviously severe, it is impossible to know how much chronic pain and suffering declawing causes. However, one can consider similar procedures in people. Many human amputees report life-long, painful "phantom" sensations from the amputated part. Declawing is ten to eighteen separate amputations, so it is not unreasonable to believe that declawed cats experience phantom pain in one or more toes. Cats typically conceal pain or illness until it becomes unbearable. With chronic pain, it may be that they simply learn to live with it. Their behavior may appear normal, but a lack of overt signs of pain does not mean they are pain-free.