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A veterinary blog for pet lovers, vet voyeurs and the medically curious...
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I’ve confessed here before: Yes I do declaw cats. You may dislike this about me—and I don’t blame you. I don’t like to declaw cats, either.
It’s a personal decision for every vet: Am I willing to amputate the cat fingertips for the benefit of their humans? And, most of the time, I would say no. But sometimes it’s a procedure where the expressed goal is to keep that cat safe and indoors with his family.
Families with geriatric or immunosuppressed members (chemo, AIDS, transplants, etc.) are a no-brainer. If kitty uses her claws when being handled, people with challenged immune systems are at high risk for serious infections.
Other declaw exceptions include seriously destructive pets whose owners have tried everything…except eliminating the claws. If scratching posts, claw covers (like Soft Paws) and furniture protection haven’t worked, we go for the declaw instead of the outdoors. Given the choice, I’ll always choose [what’s usually] a few days of medicated pain over a lifetime of exposure to outdoor risks.
The event that occasioned this post occurred a couple of weeks ago. And it happened, to a large extent, because I failed to heed my own advice. One of my colleagues had to rush out of the office on emergency and left me with his daily surgeries (a highly uncommon occurrence). One surgery was a declaw whose owners I’d never met and whom I couldn’t reach by phone before the procedure. Instead of postponing to conference with his owner, I went ahead with the declaw.
Now, this was a full-grown cat. I have very special rules about how I do declaws on these guys. I use pre-anesthetic non-steroidal pain relievers, local nerve blocks and post-op opiates. I never use a laser—just a batch of very sharp blades. Sometimes, I even use fentanyl patches, but this requires that I apply the patch at least six hours before surgery—I had no such luxury that day.
Thankfully, the procedure went well and kitty recovered beautifully. I kept him for two days without incident (I don’t send them home immediately because I find that owners seldom are able to control serious running or jumping—definitely a complicating factor).
The day kitty went home he came right back—bleeding paws. Not good but a very common compliction, nonetheless. To be safe, I kept him over the weekend without any bleeding.
Yesterday, kitty’s owner came back in with him—complaining of kitty’s limping and holding paws up intermittently (an obvious sign of discomfort). The surgical sites looked beautifully healed. All the pads were perfectly intact and no bony protuberances were palpable beneath them. And there was no obvious pain when I palpated them. In short, a perfect declaw (in spite of the bleeding that one day)—that still managed to go wrong.
This is the most frustrating kind of situation: An upset owner whose reasons for surgery were perhaps not what I’d normally consider acceptable and to whom pre-procedure warnings on high complication rates on declaws never got communicated. Bad bad bad.
I explained the possibility of sensory confusion (the paws just feel strange with no claws) or intermittent phantom pain that would more than likely resolve after a few weeks. “Tincture of time,” I told him. He was not amused. I gave a pain shot anyway to mollify him and by way of discerning strange sensation from pain.
Today I plan on calling to see how it’s going. I’m not looking forward to the call. Like all vets, our goal is to help—not to injure pets with unnecessary procedures. And a less-than-satisfied client with a potentially painful pet is just about the worst feedback you can get. The moral of the story: stick to your basic principles and make no exceptions for random occurrences like the one that occasioned this one. Some day I’ll learn to follow my own codes over short-sighted concessions to my clients’ convenience.
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"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
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- Mohandas Gandhi
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I will say that my experience has led me to learn all that I can about my cats and their care – and I changed vets to one that discusses my boys with me.
My others- they aren't declawed. They've recently decided that the cat tree is worthy to use as a clawing post and I'm rather thrilled that they've finally decided to claw something acceptable.
I'm not a fanatic either way. My pet peeve is simply people who get a kitten and immediately state they are going to declaw. Give the cat a chance! Declawing is a permanent solution so it shouldn't be leapt to easily nor immediately.
In the end, though, rather the kitten goes with a couple who'll declaw it and keep it for life then end up in the shelter system.
the vets i work for are extremely pro-declaw, most of the other techs and the morning receptionist have their cats all four-paw declawed, and then there's me. i have five cats, all fully clawed, and they cause me no trouble at all. they don't claw the furniture, they don't claw the curtains, they don't climb my window screens. they have a big cat tree and a bunch of scratching pads, and i trim nails every couple weeks (when the kneading starts hurting) and everything's good. it's not that hard.
I did have a vet who when meeting Rags for the first time immediately said, "My god, please don't say you want this cat declawed." Rags had 30 toes- 8 each front paw and 7 each back, without the "thumb" effect of most polydactyls. She had little snowshoe feet. She never was declawed. Or afraid to use them. :)
Its sad that there aren't more studies showing the side effects of declawing. I've only seen a few, and they talk about the problems with arthritis because the gait of the cat is thrown off.
I am 110% anti declaw, but I try never to even appear to belittle people about it. I point out the facts, and that is that. I applaud you for trying to council people about the alternitives before doing a declaw. Too many vets just see the money in the proceedure and sweep any possible side effects under the rug. not every cat is going to have problems, but there are enough declawed cats surrendered at the shelters for urinating issues and for biting, for it all to be a coincidence.
The "no brainer" reasons you described for okaying declaws can ALL be solved with Soft Paws, regular nail trims, and behavior modification training. A cat bite is far more serious for these people and we all know declawed cats use their teeth for defense when their claws have been chopped off. I have observed 1000's of cats in my life through the past 20 years of shelter work and have NEVER come across a cat who has clawed so "destructively" that justified deknuckling them, EVERY last one could be trained with time and persistence. Unfortunately because of owner ignorance & laziness, coupled with the unethical vets preying on this ignorance and pandering this surgery for financial gain, as many as 14 million cats in country are declawed. Absolutely ridiculous. No cat "has" to be declawed!
I especially find it offensive Dr. K that you quote Gandi on your site, "The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated", yet you continue to harm animals in this way. I hope someday soon your blog post about declawing will be like this ethical vet who has made the decision to not harm cats in this way: http://network.bestfriends.org/celebrateclawsnotde...
For anyone reading this that would like to see this surgery banned in our country like it is in many other countries, please sign this declaw petition and read all the accounts from shelter workers who see the behavioral problems that encounter declawed cats throughout their lives. Declawing is NOT saving cats lives or keeping them in their homes or keeping them from being abandoned outdoors. Many are disposed of because of the problems they have AFTER being declawed. The vet community is not interested in tracking this or doing a long term study to confirm this - why would they when declawing has become a $3 billion a year industry for them? They only highlight the "success stories". Meanwhile shelters that are tracking relinquished cats with behavioral problems state that 70-80% are DECLAWED - what's wrong with this picture?????????
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/32740081...
In my over 30 years caring for strays, ferals ,and raising my prides and Joys, I have never met a cat or kitten that couldn't be trained with the smallest of effort beginning with with good, solid, feline pet education!
It is essential for a cat to KEEP his claws for an honestly HAPPY cat. How would you fare for the rest of your life without your first knuckles attatched to your hands? If you liked to run you would have to learn all over without an integral part of your *break system*- Indeed-We don't choose to handicap people because they haven't been properly trained, and we most certainly do not have the right to maim our companion animals!
The biggest problem in this country is, unfortunately, a complete lack of proper training information handed out by veterinarian's offices accross the country. WHY can't vets, who pet people LOOK UP TO tell the truth? Why many vets even RECOMMEND declaw! It's quite a cash cow her in the states as well as in Canada. So why not? lets' pamper the people and make money while we're at it, eh?
Good money could be made by the ALL vets who offer the type of education their clients and cats deserve, refuse to declaw and make it known WHY, besides offering special feline grooming clinics to trim nails, selling PROPER cat trees that cats ACTUALLY USE, and for those who still can't grasp the ease in which they can be trained, a manicure and pedicure using all the super-cool colors of softpaws! This would keep people coming in with their pets and I bet we'd see happier kitty owners - MUCH happier kitties and way less kitties being dumped for behavioral problems CAUSED by cruel declaws.
Try it...you 'll like it (and yourself) a whole lot better!
That is t barbaric-
your comment is old and worn out, sad to say. as training is so EASY with the proper information, PLEASE, in the future, if your education is so very limited and your thoughts so tunnel-visioned, adopt only those who have already been maimed, do not mutilate a healthy complete kitten or cat, you have no idea how very cruel this is..
NO ONE DECLAWS WITH LOVE-only laziness, selfishness or lack of education. If 24 countries BAN it, and no one complains, why should you????????????