Well I would certainly believe the things I have seen with my own eyes over someone's opinions and while true mine are also opinion based at least they are based upon first hand knowledge. You were a vet ast, ok And you base part of your argument on seeing the cat wake up and flop around and try to shake its bandages off. Ok first I can go over 100s of surgeries where they wake up like that and hell on any of them throw some gauze and bandages on them and I bet ya they will try to shake it off the same exact way.
Now before I go on let me mention I am for spaying and neutering pets 100%. >From a social stand point spay and neutering pets is accepted without a second >thought but declawing is not. >From a medical stand point which is worse? Declawing is like if we had hinges >on our finger nails and removing them, from a medical stand point its no big >deal but you are all up in arms over it yet in the same breath you can say >spaying and neutering is fine and dandy. From a medical standpoint when you >spay or neuter you are actually removing a body organ and especially in the >case of spaying where you are penetrating the abdominal cavity and doing >either of these is WAY more traumatic to a body then what a declaw is. So for people to say one is bad and the other is ok is pretty hypocritical. Technically neither is all that great for them at the time. On your behavioral comments. So declawing is the only thing that will change a cats personality huh.... Any kind of surgery where something is removed or fixed can do that. Here is an example: If you neuter a 5 month old cat will it change his personality... probably not, maybe in a few cases but not the norm. If you have a 5 year old tom cat and you cut his nuts off is his personality going to change.... ABSOLUTELY But I don't here you saying that is bad. Now call your vet and ask him if its better to declaw a kitten (under 6 months) or an adult cat from a medical stand point & just like with spay & neutering they will say the younger one. But your solution is to wait and try things and if it doesn't work out then do it, which by then really is too late because then you are back to an adult cat and your chances of issues greatly rise. And the thing you gotta understand is that most people who consider declawing will probably do it no matter what so if it's gunna happen then just do it when the time is right and not when its too late. It isn't YOUR decision to make for people it's there's. You can offer your opinion but don't get all freaked when someone else offers there's. just a random google on it: http://www.cpvh.com/Articles/9.html "Best age for declawing is 3-5 months of age, " http://vetmedicine.about.com/cs/behavior/a/declawdilemma.htm "Age to Declaw Young (4 months to 8 months), non-overweight cats are better candidates for surgery when the decision to declaw has been made. They do experience pain, but recover much quicker and with less complications than older and/or overweight cats. Many veterinarians do administer pain control medication post operatively." "I'd be interested in seeing some documentation that there's nothing wrong with Declawing, and it's fine for the cats. :) " I'd like to see some documentation that spay and neutering is 100% ok, or the vaccines are 100% ok, or that cat litter you use is 100% ok. It's like anything else in the world, when there are huge numbers involved there will be bad ones. I can tell you from my experience that I saw more and more severe medical issues post surgery from spays and neuters then from declaws but in our minds we choose to over look those because its socially acceptable but the reality is that there are more complications from spay & neutering. In most cases it comes down to who is doing the procedure. If you go to a spay and neuter clinic when they "convertor belt" them through as fast as they can they end up with tons of problems. But say if you have a board certified surgeon do it then it's pretty rare for complications. "So you have no problems then if we came around and chopped off your fingers from the first joint up. and then require you to walk around on your hands while they heal... no problem then, let me get my axe and we'll accommodate you." So should we go around to all the young kids and rip out there reproductive organs whether they wanted them or not because someone thinks there are too many kids in the world? And its not like "chopping off the end of your finger", its more like removing the fingernail, it doesnt affect their walking... not anymore then it would by ripping their nuts off. A lot of people who are against this will try to make it out like that but really in order for your statement to be correct you'd have to do the declaw 1 more joint up. "You seem to be saying with such comparisons that declawing is *better* for the cat that just leaving them as they are...pretty sad." No i am saying that i dont mind the declawing procedure on younger cats. So why don't you "just leaving them as they are.." and not rip out their organs or make them shit in a box of sand. "I personally prefer *NOT* to purposely disable my pets." Um hello.... when you spay or neuter your pet you ARE DISABLING them!!!!! "And we don't even completely understand all the ways that claws are important to cats. For instance, full-body stretching while scratching is an important way cats exercise and tone their muscles. How can we possibly know what we are taking away from our cat when we remove their ability to do this effectively? " Yet you have no problem ripping their sexual organs out.... How would you feel if your cat ripped your sexual organs out because they didn't want you to breed? "Knowing that this is a nice cash cow for you does make me question how objective about it you can be." Why is that a cash cow for me? I didn't make an extra dime off of it. Clients bring their pets in and ask for it and it gets passed on, I just did what I was told to do. "For every vet that does tons of declaws just as a routine surgery, there are many others that have refused to do it as inhumane" well good for them, I didn't have that choice, I either did what I was told or I was fired and not having a job wouldnt exactly feed my kid now would it. I very much disagreed with cosmetic type surgeries like ear cropping but I still had to do them. I also know vets who don't believe in vaccinations and won't give them, I know vets who don't believe in spay and neutering and won't do them. You can find anyone who won't do anything if you look. "And how many cats did you follow through their entire lives?" I saw a lot of them for a lot of years and most were great. Again if you use this argument then you need to also use it on spays/neuters, vaccinations, id tagging. Ok now there is another good one that is socially fine and that is sticking an foreign body into the a body where it does not belong. That can cause complications as well but no one bitches about that. Wait till you see one that got infected and got so bad that it ate all the tissue away between the shoulder blades and went all the way into the chest cavity and is filling the chest cavity with puss... Yet we don't hear about those. "The reason I do not put much faith in what vets say is that 1. this is a money-making surgery for them" to some it is.. big time and I aint saying its not but there are also a lot of them out there that don't really see many problems with it, again there are way more problems with spays and neuters than declaws(at least in MY experience). "they often don't know the full consequences of the surgery over the cat's entire life." You can say the same thing for any procedure that is done, it certainly isn't singled out to just declaws. You ever see what happens when the inside of a spay gets infected? "We have shelter workers that say they see far more cats turned in for elimination and behavior issues" And I will put money on this that those cats were done at an older age. And quite frankly.. A lot of behavioral issues are actually cause by the owners. And shelters aren't the best place for surgical procedures. You keep going after me like i am for declawing 100% of the time and I have stated that I am not. I wouldn't recommend doing it to a grown cat. And if someone follows your advise what will happen is what you stated above because they waited on doing it until it was to late and then there was problems. If the same people would have done it when the cat was a kitten then those #'s would drop by a ton. "The fact is that too many people when given the option take the easiest route rather than try and solve the issue first." That is true but it is what happens and most people that even think about it will eventually do it no matter what your opinion is and that is just the way it is, so if they are going to do it at some point then what I am saying is do it when it's going to cause the least amount of trauma, same reason why you spay or neuter as early as possible. Also most cats scratch a lot because of behavioral issues in the first place. The truth is that the best thing to do is find out what is pissing the cat off in the first place and most people won't do that or even think about that. "Again, this is why you cannot go by someone's personal experience, because they will slant any issues they see to be attributed to something else." True but I am not here saying everybody go declaw your cats now. When I first saw it i was like you and totally against it but after years of doing it and not seeing any real issues then it changed how I think about it. They also say that if you spay or neuter to early that it can stunt their growth or cause countless problems but shelters do pre-mature spays and neuters all the time and you could count up lots of issues based upon those but again no one wants to look at that side of it but hey WILL try and tell you the good parts of spay or neutering (like eliminating overian or testicular cancers) but again they don't tell you the horror stories that happen on a daily basis. "Part of the problem is that true long-term studies of the effects of declawing, particularly behavioral issues, are sadly lacking." yeah, i can agree with that but again that can be for any procedure that is done. Do you smoke? if you do then what about that? How many pets does that have long term effect on? Have you ever considered that or even thought of that before? On your studies.... That very well could be true and like I have said countless times.. I believe it is an issue on mature cats. Really I would have to see a study based on age as well because like I have said the young ones don't have near as many problems. Part of the problem is how an adult is done and I can't stand how it's done and it leads to a lot of bone chips and chopped up pads. The way a kitten is done is very clean and effective. And on a kitten you don't need sutures just super glue the skin and when done properly they don't really seem to mind and are up and going within hours. A HUGE problem with declaws is like you say it is a cash cow for a lot of vets and a lot of them don't treat the procedure with much respect and in a lot of cases let employees do them because they don't want to do it (not as in they dont believe in it but as being lazy) and some of these people have no idea what they are actually doing which leads to problems. It's the same with cat neuters, there are a lot of vets who pass it along to whoever to do. Neither a cat neuter or declaw is a "sterile" procedure, which of course also invites a lot of room for problems. I acknowledge and respect your point of view but the facts are that people are going to do it, no matter what you say or do. I can't even count the times when someone has come in and said something like "my friend got their cat declawed and it's so great so i want that too". You also need to understand at least at the clinics I worked at that we weren't pushing declaws and other options were given before the procedure was done. But it doesn't matter to most people because their mind is already set. So you can be upset with what I have said but it is the way it is and if it's going to be done then do it at the right time. Declawing is not something you want to wait and try later. btw~ i have also seen cases were declaws were done for good reason. For example in a couple of cases the owners had it done because they loved their cat but the cats was feverishly scratching their new born baby and they didn't want to give the cats up because if they took them to the pound the chances are that they wouldn't get adopted as a full grown cat and would end up being destroyed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:248957 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
