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An owner who gives his/her cat to a shelter because of some scratched piece of furniture doesn’t deserve to be a cat owner after all. What he/she would have done had his/her kids destroy said furniture? Turn them in to an orphanage?

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Exactly. As a cat owner it is your responsibility to let the cat have its natural behaviour. If your cat scratches your sofa, get a scratch station and work work work until the undesired behaviour stops.

A cat has the right to a happy life, and of you want a happy indoor cat that is a lot of work.

The problem is that not all of the home owners want the pets, and it's a compromise. My mom was adamant that declawed or nothing and the cat would have been probably been put down. As is, it got declawed and tolerated by her... but I'm sure she would have preferred undeclawed and no cat and it would have been put down at the shelter or drowned by the farmer.

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