Cat Declawing Is Banned by New York State Lawmakers
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Declawing isn’t just removing the claws. The equivalent when performed on a human would be to surgically remove the last section of your fingers, on all your fingers. You don’t/can’t just remove the claws: you are removing the entire bone.
It is absolutely cruel and unusual and honestly, you are a monster if you support this.
That said, I also don't buy the mutilation argument at face value. We literally castrated all of our male cats, and nobody bats an eye. Indeed, you seem to be frowned upon if you don't. Surely that is as mutilating to a male cat as losing a knuckle?
> That said, I also don't buy the mutilation argument at face value. We literally castrated all of our male cats, and nobody bats an eye. Indeed, you seem to be frowned upon if you don't. Surely that is as mutilating to a male cat as losing a knuckle?
At least castration has the actual benefit of aiding in population control. I don't see any benefit to declawing and in fact it endangers outdoor cats as they can't adequately protect themselves.
For the other, are there actual numbers on what that means for cats? Feels like an appeal to emotion, as much as anything else. Outdoor cats, I would presume, are far more likely to die from a car than from anything they can protect themselves from with front claws.
And again. I actually support the idea here. I just don't know if I have strong logic to stand on. I'd call it devil's advocate, but I'm not sure that is right.
Male un-neutered cats, somewhat like some of their human un-neutered counterparts, are prone to aggressive, overly sexual, and territorial behaviour (including spraying). Likely fine on on an outdoor farm cat, but probably not what you want for a pet who lives in your house.
I believe the morality laws around surgery on pets are something like “It’s ok to perform surgery on pets as long as your intent is to inflict psychological damage; so as to break their will and make the animal more domesticated, but it’s not ok if it’s purely cosmetic”.
Don’t question the laws man.
That said, I consider declawing a form of assault to the animal, taking away from it the only tools it can use and the main weapon to defend itself.
When I have adopted senior cats who are resistant to change I have just buyild scratching posts that sit beside the couch.
Just like kids and dogs, you need to not only say NO, but to also say YES to what they can do.
If you value your couch over your cats well-being you do not deserve a cat.
I'm sympathetic, in that without this many people would not want or be able to keep male cats. But I'm not sure I have a logical leg to stand on to say this is acceptable, but that declawing is not.
Sure you could argue that we don't have a right to castrate them either, but it is not equivalently detrimental to their quality of life.
Independent of whether cats are even capable of feeling regret about not having children of their own, I'd say that's not as bad as losing the equivalent of the tips of their fingers with built-in grappling-hook-switchblades.
It's definitely a significant difference in the cat's existence to be clawless. I'm happy to see this attitude shifting, but as others have commented here, there will almost certainly be more cats returned to shelters (and killed) when they won't stop shredding the furniture and carpet.
Even if you trim their claws, in my experience they will always do some damage to anything they can sink their claws into. It obviously feels good and is a compulsive activity like stretching for them.
And if you raise them to be aggressive with too much rough-housing in protective clothing, it can be a real problem, like with guests who think it's a good idea to pet the cat that's been unintentionally conditioned to think all arms are as impervious to claws as layers of sweatshirts worn in constant rough-housing. I had a friend who made this mistake long ago, that cat was awesome if you knew how to play with it but it required a safety warning at the entrance or blood would be spilled.
A cat has the right to a happy life, and of you want a happy indoor cat that is a lot of work.
It was less about furniture and more about not getting scratched (or having dogs get scratched).
Based on the descriptions I read from the people against declawing cats - it doesn’t seem like their arguments are very accurate. It feels a lot more emotional and more like they’re making up arguments to back their existing position (rather than actually looking at harm done).
In Germany I don't even know when this was outlawed, but nobody here would even think that is possible.
I don't buy the euthanasia or abandonment argument at all.
In Germany it is forbidden to euthanize animals for lack of resources or will to keep it. People often have to pay shelters to take their animals, and if they just abandon them somewhere, they may get fined or even prosecuted.
In general, Germans tend to ask shelters first, when trying to acquire a dog, cats also. It has gotten so far that shelters have more applicants than dogs they can give them, and the dogs which stay in shelters are not suited to an average dog owner (behavior, size, medical issues). We even import thousands of street/shelter dogs from all over Europe.
Cats unfortunately are too plentiful. There are always some feral/semi-feral populations who haven't been neutered. Shelters keep them, but they will often stay all their life there.
And of course, not all of the US is comparable to Germany in many regards. In Germany there aren't a lot of sparsely populated areas, and the animal protection laws are a lot tougher.
Outlawed in most countries, animal cruelty.
I also wonder if crispr or embryo selection could be used if a GWAS could find genes that lead to softer claws.
The selection techniques have been used to improve milk yields for cows, so it seems like making cats which don't need to be declawed would be a valid project.
Have a scratcher and trim off their nails, problem solved.
The thing that I don't really get is that people want to have an animal in their homes, but they don't like the true animal behaviors so they want to stop them from doing what they naturally do. People want cute and cuddly cats, but when the cat scratches someone its acting bad. In reality it's just responding to its environment and its acting like the animal that it is.
I admittedly have no idea how’d you’d test this in an animal—but it seems like it should be a prerequisite to banning the procedure.
As is, euthanasia of cats and dogs is generally considered morally acceptable, and we can reasonably predict that more cats will be euthanatized as a result of this law. So if there weren't clear evidence that declawing was inherently harmful to a pet cat, I would consider it misguided to ban the practice.
Declawing often introduces other behavioural problems (biting, soiling outside the cat box) which are usually a sign of your cat not liking the situation.
Castration is for the male cat a smaller operation, and usually fixes problems and gives you a happier less aggressive cat with an increased tendency to gain weight.
Behaviour problems in cats are usually because they are not stimulated enough, and declawing them will hide the scratching problem but will sometimes introduce other problems that are harder to fix.
Veterinarians should really propose other solutions first such as activelt working with your cats behaviour. In the end it will probably give you a happier cat.
I would argue that aggressiveness in the male cat is a different kind of behaviour. It is a natural behaviour, of course, but it is not easily changed, and it is also not a behaviour that makes your cat happy.
To summarize: castrating a cat is a good way to get a happier calmer and slightly fatter cat. Declawing is usually done to prevent a either a natural behaviour or a sign that your cat is unhappy. It commonly leads to other behavioural problems that are even harder to fix.
One is a path to a happy cat, one is to sweep a problem under the rug.
I am of course coloured by where I live: declawing has been outlawed for quite some time and even before that it was considered animal abuse by most.
The Wikipedia entry about declawing is pretty good if you are still interested.
The studies cited with positive results for relinquishment pushes for other risk factors such as understanding and investing in you cat as a contributor to positive outcome. Maybe people willing to pay are more invested in their cats, and go with what a veterinarian recommends (which may be declawing).
The most important thing about a scratching post is that it must not move. If a cat tries to use it, and it wobbles, then the cat will give up on it. It will go back to scratching your couch, which does not move.
Cats use scratching posts not just to sharpen their claws but to stretch their spines. Watch their whole body when they use a scratching post. Is not like how you stretch in the morning? Declawing a cat deprives them of this. Even if the pain of amputation subsides, this disability remains.
When I was researching whether to declaw my cat, I found this article about the many ways it hurts cats and why it is unnecessary, https://www.purrfectpost.com/declawing-cats-alternatives-to-.... "A cat that has access to scratching posts that meet their needs for marking territory, stretching muscles, and relieving stress will almost always choose to use them rather than the less attractive options of furniture and carpet."
Then I read their article on choosing a scratching post and ending up buying theirs, https://www.purrfectpost.com/how-to-choose-the-best-cat-scra...
I'm unaffiliated with Purrfect Post, but my cat likes their stuff.
Understanding better your cat and building a relationship of trust will be even better. My last cat never, ever, used seriously his claws against me. Of course I never, ever, used my claws against him. Reciprocity.
I have a friend cat who always scratches me, which is quite painful and leaves marks. Is there a way to trim the nails so this doesn't happen, or is the only solution to avoid the cat?
1) Trim the nails like you said, that's not always easy to do depending on the cat. 2) Encourage the cat to use scratching posts more, using treats and catnip 3) Softpaws or similar. https://www.softpaws.com/
Having said that, unless you get them accustomed to the process as a kitten, you may end up suffering more than if you hadn’t attempted it in the first place.
Unrelated but I recently learned they use lasers for parrots to trim the claws while coterizing.
Some cats will protest violently and make it extremely difficult to trim them though
Trimming helps but yeah, search for behavior fixes. Cats are different from us (and dogs) but they're usually not that complicated to figure out.
If the cat goes after you, that's a whole different ball game!
Problems in cat behavior are conquerable, with the right strategies. It seems to be more about changing the environment with cats, rather than training, as it is with dogs.
So for example if you go to pet a cat's stomach and it doesn't want you to its only recourse maybe to use it's claws to "grab" your hand.
I think removing the ability to "grip" from cats for the sake of furniture or because you want to do things to the cat it doesn't like is wrong.
If you don't like scratchy cats don't have a cat.
As an owner I think you can avoid getting scratched. As a vet... I personally have never been bitten (too little practical experience), but I've seen colleagues handle cats in a way that just spelled resignation to the fact that those teeth will connect and there is nothing to be done about it....
The solution is to just put the cat outside or in another room for a bit not to mutilate it, IMHO.
*(What's funny to me is that I helped them choose the cat when it was a kitten because it was "a licker". I didn't realise at the time it was just making notes on us all to see how we tasted.)
I trim them regularily to save the young birds on our trees, because with trimmed nails our cat cannot climb the tree anymore that well.
For habitual scratchers it's possible to reduce it with training and familiarisation of both cat and human. But since this isn't your cat, you might find trying to avoid interaction when you're visiting your friend is the quickest way to less bleeding.
Does the cat scratch your friend as well? If not then you can probably build a better relationship with the cat with some effort and patience (and a few more scratches). Cats generally respond well to humans meeting them on their terms, but that takes some understanding of cat behaviour and psychology. Doesn't mean they'll necessarily be interested, but you can at least increase your chances of avoiding a scratch.