New York state has banned cat declawing | Hacker News Reader

New York state has banned cat declawing

cnn.com

41 pointsevo_943 comments

I know a lot of people that would not own a cat that isn't declawed. I wonder what the net outcome is on cats being euthanized, I'm sure this will increase that number.

Sounds like an unfortunate short-term consequence, but if people don't want to own a cat anymore because they can't declaw it, I'm okay with that.

I would be much happier knowing that these people not own any pets if they were unable to care for them in a humane way. Declawing a cat is the equivalent to removing someone's fingers at the individual knuckle level. It's impractical, cruel, and causes lasting physical problems for the cat.

I don't know if I agree with you or not, but when you make strange claims like that it's "impractical", it calls into question the legitimacy of your other claims.

> Declawing a cat is the equivalent to removing someone's fingers at the individual knuckle level.

Cats do not have opposable thumbs, but humans do. I would consider that a false equivalency.

It is very easy to keep the cat claws trimmed with clippers on a regular basis. Just start playing with their paws frequently. Then you can start clipping once they are fine with you playing with their paws. Even better to start when they are a kitten.

I’d much rather an animal be humanely euthanized due to not being placed in a home than needlessly suffering from humans purposefully mutilating them for the rest of their lives.

It sucks that we can’t find homes for every animal, but we don’t go purposefully placing animals in households that would abuse them just to avoid feeling bad about euthanasia. Declawing is abuse like any other.

>I know a lot of people that would not own a cat that isn't declawed. I wonder what the net outcome is on cats being euthanized, I'm sure this will increase that number.

I had a girlfriend who wanted a cat but wanted to declaw the front claws, leaving the rear for defense if it ever got outside (I don't have a cat - this was her decision). The shelter explicitly forbade this, including a scary-looking legal contract promising not to declaw a cat, so she didn't adopt it in the end.

It's very likely the cat is now dead due to this policy since no one adopted it. I'm not sure that this outcome is more humane.

I haven't formed an opinion on this yet. I love cats and my gut is sympathetic to anti-declawing viewpoints as I would never declaw a cat myself, but I'm seeing a lot of anti-declawing rhetoric here that makes very little sense if you look at it logically in contrast with neutering.

If you're an opponent of declawing, are you also an opponent of neutering? If not, can you present an argument against declawing that isn't also a straightforward argument against neutering?

Neutering is necessary mostly for societal benefit: It prevents stray cats (via catch and release) and/or runaways from creating more cats.

Declawing is necessary mostly for personal benefit: You can't train your cat and therefore it must lose their claws.

One is something that's useful for society as a whole, the other is useful because you are an asshole. That's mostly how I've seen the distinction. What kind of arguments have you encountered in the wild?

I guess the counterargument I've seen for this is that declawed cats are more likely to be adopted, and allowing declawing makes intact cats more likely to be adopted--both societal benefits. It seems like the fact that it also benefits an individual is sort of a distraction here.

Thanks for trying, but I think I'm still in the same place: I don't have a persuasive argument for or against declawing.

That said, my gut feeling is still against it, so I'm not going to exactly go lobby to bring back declawing. I wonder if that's basically why declawing is illegal in so many places--people following their instincts are against it, and nobody feels strongly enough for it to defend it.

In any case, I'm not bent that it's illegal now (I live in NY), just puzzled.

EDIT: Okay, I guess I have a question which would settle this for me: is adoption of cats actually a societal benefit as compared to having more strays? An Aoshima-style[1] island of cats doesn't seem like a dystopia to me, and it seems like stray cats are capable of caring for themselves without human intervention. There are probably some downsides (in NY state, ticks) but there are other solutions to those problems.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/03/a-visit-to-aoshima...

I’m curious, what arguments have you seen for declawing that are illogical compared to neutering?

In this thread:

> Declawing a cat is the equivalent to removing someone's fingers at the individual knuckle level.

Neutering is the equivalent to, well, neutering someone.

> I’d much rather an animal be humanely euthanized due to not being placed in a home than needlessly suffering from humans purposefully mutilating them for the rest of their lives.

> It sucks that we can’t find homes for every animal, but we don’t go purposefully placing animals in households that would abuse them just to avoid feeling bad about euthanasia. Declawing is abuse like any other.

Literally if you replace "declawing" with "neutering" once in this post, it's an argument that it would be better to euthanize than neuter.

To further underscore your argument:

The current viewpoint of most animal control organizations (with the notable exception of no-kill shelters) is that euthanization is one method to achieve population control, neutering would be another.

The human analog of that would be "genocide". But yet, we don't use the term "genocide" to describe controlling the populations of feral animals.

>Neutering is the equivalent to, well, neutering someone.

Compulsory sterilization [1] has been deemed another form of genocide.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

We adopted a declawed cat. He died at the ripe old age of 16 and gave us as many years of joy and happiness, but it was true that he was particularly skittish even around us who he had known his entire life. It was clear he was traumatized in some way and that may have contributed in some way.

Been illegal here in Queensland, Australia for quite some time now.

Cats are legal to own. They get shelter, clean food and water including medical care. In fact people release cats into wild when they don't want to care for them leading to a lot of wildcats. While some places forbid cats going outside and encourage desexing, all this doesn't help the disadvantaged wildlife. Cats should be banned.

Why not legalize ownership of domesticated native animals such as koalas for example? Boom to tourism, culture and wildlife. Lots of funds can go to welfare of wildlife instead of foreign animals. What happens to domesticated koalas being released by people who dont want to care for them? A lot of wild koalas.

It's so sad you're being downvoted because you're right. Cats are destroying many of the world's ecosystems and cats owners and stray feeders are to blame.

Do you want a plague? Because that's how you get a plague

Care to explain why? Just curious.

Taking a native animal and locking them in a back yard doesn't make them domesticated. Dogs and cats (to a lesser extent) co-evolved with humans over thousands of years and can even be seen as a partnership.

Koalas in particular would make terrible pets, they need a lot of space for multiple Eucalyptus trees to keep them fed because they're stupid to recognize fresh leaves pulled off a tree from leaves still attached to a tree, they can be very aggressive, they piss everywhere and thanks to their diet it's got an extremely strong smell. And to top it all off this smelly piss can transmit the chlamydia that they are widely suffering from to humans.

Outdoor cats should be banned but they aren't going to be replaced by Koalas any time soon.

Wild animal babies are rescued all the time. Fed and returned to wild. That's a potential source. But it will still take time but possible, an example I've followed are siberian foxes. Who expects an adult koala born in a backyard to suddenly be domesticated? I expect domestication of a wild adult koala to be the same as domesticating an adult wildcat. Very difficult despite "thousands of years of existing with humans"

I don't think koalas need the space. We're certainly not giving cats and dogs lots of room with chickens for them to feed on. We've been giving them dry and canned food. Another example are horses who eat hay are often in the barn.

There's not much funding for Chlamydia or similar health issues they have because the funding relies on government and people goodwill. If over a million koalas are owned by people, a lot of people would pay for medical solutions for their ill family members. Average population just doesnt have the same goodwill towards wild animals.

> I don't think koalas need the space. We're certainly not giving cats and dogs lots of room with chickens for them to feed on. We've been giving them dry and canned food. Another example are horses who eat hay are often in the barn.

The need the space for the trees, they need the trees because they simply won't eat from non-fresh sources. Buying food from the shop like we do for cats and dogs is simply not an option.

> I expect domestication of a wild adult koala to be the same as domesticating an adult wildcat

Why would you expect that given the wildly different starting points? Wildcats are somewhat generalist carnivorous pack animals, quite similar to our selves and species that have been (debatably) domesticated before. Koalas are hyper specialized and very stupid herbivores with no domesticated relatives. There are many species on earth but very few of them are suitable for domestication, especially domestication in modern urban environments.

It is illegal in all of Australia, and also in: England Scotland Wales Italy Austria Switzerland Norway Sweden Ireland Denmark Finland Slovenia Brazil New Zealand Serbia Montenegro Macedonia Slovenia France Germany Bosnia Malta Netherlands Northern Ireland Portugal Belgium Israel

According to this webpage: https://www.declawing.com/countries-that-outlaw-declawing

More generally, every EU country that subscribed the Convention of Strasbourg of 13/11/1987 and converted it in national Law.

[PDF]: https://rm.coe.int/168007a67d

Article 10 – Surgical operations

1 Surgical operations for the purpose of modifying the appearance of a pet animal or for other non-curative purposes shall be prohibited and, in particular:

a the docking of tails;

b the cropping of ears;

c devocalisation;

d declawing and defanging;

2 Exceptions to these prohibitions shall be permitted only:

a if a veterinarian considers non-curative procedures necessary either for veterinary medical reasons or for the benefit of any particular animal;

b to prevent reproduction.

I thought part of the fun of having a cat is the claws. I really don't understand how people could mutilate their supposed loved ones like this, it's barbaric.

So is this a big loss for birds and small animals, or were the cats getting declawed not "outside cats" anyway?

Smart time to invest into couch manufacturers.

TIL: declawing.

Maybe a cat is not the right animal for you...

Unfortunately some landlords/property managers have made declawing mandatory in their lease agreements, and many cat owners may be unaware of what the procedure actually entails.

In fact, the property management group that handled placing us in our home had mandatory declawing in their standard lease agreement. This was a no-go for us, and we quickly contacted the property owner (who is super awesome, and we lease from her directly so doubly so) and had it taken out. Our landlady didn’t fuss about it, but I highly encourage renters stand up against clauses like this and bring facts against misconceptions against “declawing”.

Probably after hard lobbying from the furniture cabal.

They should have banned outdoor cats at the same time. Cats shouldn't be declawed and neither should they be outside, but if they're going to be outside it is better for the native wildlife if they have been declawed (making them ineffective hunters.)

My cat growing up was declawed and seemed to still be a fairly effective hunter given the frequency of offerings she brought home. She could also climb trees up to about 7-8 feet.

Are you suggesting that house cat claws are vestigial? That simply isn't the case. Their claws improve their hunting success rate dramatically since they use them to snare their prey. A declawed cat may still have some success in hunting, but will be far less effective. In fact is one of the arguments I've often heard offered up by advocates of declawing bans (to reiterate, I also support declawing bans but I believe that particular argument against it is misguided.)

I think this person's comment may be unpopular, but cats have decimated the world's songbird population.

"Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for U.S. birds and mammals"

I would say further that declawing doesn't prevent hunting and killing.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/29/cats-w...

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