Years and years ago it was commonplace for cat owners to declaw their house cats. They did this to save their furniture. The shredded furniture may make you want to declaw your cat, but we believe that is simply because you don’t understand what declawing is.
You see, back in the day our cats weren’t considered family members in most households. There was very little, if any, research done on felines at the time so no one knew the repercussions of this procedure. We were also part of this statistic and declawed 2 of our cats. When you don’t know better you don’t do better.
And that’s precisely the reason I’m writing this blog. So that you can know better.
Declawing isn’t removing your cats nails. It’s not trimming them down really low. If you’ve ever trimmed a cat’s nails you’d know that they just grow back. The only way they can ensure that your kitty’s claws don’t return is by amputating their toes. This is equivalent to chopping off your fingers at the 3rd knuckle.
If your fingers were amputated like this it would definitely make you handicap and cause you to be at a disadvantage. It would also be a painful surgery and would take you a long time to readjust to living life normally. The same goes for our cats.
Cats were made to have their claws for protection, hunting prey, balance, mobility, and scratching. Yes, scratching is part of the instinctive nature of being a cat. If you declaw your cat you are taking away a big part of her feline instinct. Declawed cats no longer feel as “cattish” as ones that have their claws in tact.
Because of this declawing your cats can cause behavioral issues throughout their lives. This procedure also causes health problems down the road like arthritis, lameness, back pain and tissue death.
And click here if you need help getting your cat to use the scratching posts.
If you need help on how to trim their nails, click here.
As you can see, there are many ways we can help keep our cats from shredding our furniture or hurting someone with their claws without declawing them. Now that you understand what declawing really is… please do not declaw your cats.
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