You're excited about the cat you rescued from the shelter. But after the first week, your joy has been replaced with irritation.
Your beautiful, modern couch has claw marks. Your favorite carpet is frayed at the edges. And your new, cloth-covered chairs look 10 years old.
The nails of the cute, little tabby with big, green eyes have wreaked havoc in your home, and you're at your wit's end.
But before you load up the kitten and take her to the vet to get her claws removed, those in the feline industry urge you to make an informed decision.
"There are pros and cons," said Colleen Tansey a fourth-year veterinary student who works at the Cat Care Clinic in California. "The obvious cons to declawing are what you're doing is you're actually taking the bone piece to the nail of the cat. Every digit. It's painful for them. It takes them a while to heal. They have some certain personality traits and behaviors that they do that involve their claws."
There are benefits, however.
"Pros to it are people like nice things. They like having nice furniture, they like having carpets that were passed down for generations and they don't want their pets to ruin it," she said.
Tansey also said dealing with cat scratches on young children or the elderly could lead to a dislike by the two parties.
Although the clinic where Tansey works offers the procedure, she said the staff generally tries to talk people out of the process by having them try alternatives first.
Daphna Nachminovitch, vice president of cruelty investigation at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said she does not believe there are any cases where a cat should be declawed.
"It's totally unnatural," she said. "It's performed solely for human convenience."
Nachminovitch said she believes no one would purposely subject their pet to unnecessary pain, but believes people do the procedure because they are uninformed.
"It's popular because most people have no idea what they're doing to their cat," she said. "Most people have no idea that their cat is going to be in a tremendous amount of pain."
Really So Bad?
Gail Golab, director of animal welfare division at the American Veterinary Medical Association, believes the process of declawing cats isn't as dire as it's made out to be.
"Certainly, with the advent of surgical lasers, [the procedure] has become much easier," Golab said. "Also, we've got methods and drugs available for pain control that we just didn't have [before]."
But even with these advances, the procedure should not be taken lightly, said Nancy Peterson, issues specialist for The Humane Society of the United States.
"I think one of the things that the veterinary community might come back with, they would acknowledge that in the past that maybe this was kind of a painful surgery, but now they have so much better anesthetics, techniques and pain relievers that (they ask), 'What's the big deal?'" she said. "But still, it is a big deal. I would hope people would think this is a very big deal before they would even consider it."
Golab acknowledges the seriousness of the procedures, and said the AVMA suggests alternatives before opting for surgery.
Alternatives To Surgery
A good scratching post is the first thing a cat owner must buy.
Nachminovitch suggests the Felix Katnip Tree because it's hard to knock over and the catnip is enticing.
If the scratching post doesn't do the trick, owners can try items like Soft Paws, which are little plastic pieces that go over each of the nails. A spray bottle with water has also been known to do the trick. Be sure to not forget to protect your prized possessions.
"In the same vein, what you want to do is make things that you don't want your kitty to scratch, you want to make those unattractive," said Peterson.
Sticky pieces of tape that you place on the furniture where a cat may scratch are good deterrents.
However, Golab warns, the owner must take the time to teach their pet.
"You can train cats to use those alternatives," she said. "That does take some time and some willingness on the part of the owner to do that."
But if it's between the procedure and the animal being returned to the shelter, Golab prefers the former.
"We know that somewhere between 15 and 42 percent of cats are reported to have scratching-behavior problems," she said. "We also know that behavior problems are the reason animals are given up to shelters. So if it's a question between doing a medical procedure, a surgical procedure where pain can be controlled where effects on the animal afterwards in most cases are minimal, if any, and having that animal lost its home, as a veterinarian, I know which choice I would make."
Transey, who has five cats of her own, said before she was in the veterinary business and before she understood the procedure, she had two of her cats declawed. But now that she knows the process, she would not have another cat declawed.
However, she believes a ban against declawing, which some countries have, would not help the situation.
"I think laws against it kind of defeat the purpose of doing it safely," she said. "I think if there are laws that prohibit them from doing it, people are going to find a way to do it and it's going to be not safe and it's going to be more painful for the animal."
But Peterson hopes the future of declawing is bleak.
"It is banned in many countries as inhumane and, hopefully, at some point we'll do that, also," she said.
Peterson said as a veterinary technician, she has seen many cats get declawed, and she has seen the outcome.
"Some of them do just fine, some of them don't do just fine," she said. "But again, even if they do just fine, that doesn't take away from the fact that you have decapitated their digits when it's unnecessary."
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