happyhealthycats:

About declawing.

When a cat has a specific behavior issue, it’s important to get to the cause of that problem and deal with it. Either you remove the source of the stimulus that is causing the issue, or you help the cat grow accustomed to the stimulus.

There’s a lot of areas where the “remove or get them used to it” plan of attack can get kinda muddy, but if you really boil down most cat issues that’s what it falls to, and there are different ways to deal with both.

Except declawing.

You know, it’s true. Not all cats who are declawed develop “behavior issues”, but when they do, it’s severe. And when they do, you don’t get a say in how you want to handle it. You don’t get the decision. Telling me you don’t want your cat to go on the counters is easy. I can train them not to. Heck, YOU can train them not to. It takes work but it’s doable. But if you tell me you want your cat to be able to walk on the linoleum floor instead of the carpet after you took off the tips of its toes, you don’t have that right. If you want a cat to go somewhere you’re going to have to put down a carpet for it to walk on.

And this has nothing to do about blame. Public information has changed about declawing. A lot of vets refused to do it now. It’s illegal in some countries. I know plenty of amazing cat owners who have declawed cats in the past, who have learned the reality of the procedure, and have vowed to never declaw another cat.

But once a cat is declawed, there is no amount of training that can help them. It’s all about doing what they want. Because they’re in pain. Because they’re scared. Because they have absolutely no defense.

People declaw cats because they don’t want the cat to scratch them. Cats are more likely to use their only line of defense when provoked – biting, which tends to be WAY more severe. Cats who scratch don’t get put down. Cats that bite do. The lack of protection effects every single thing about their lives. How they interact with people. How they interact with other animals.

A declawed cat will still try to scratch at scratching posts.

That fact haunts me. The fact that scratching is so ingrained into a cat’s behavior that they will still try to scratch something even when they no longer have the ability to. Because not only does it feel good and help sharpen their (long gone) claws, but it’s also an incredibly important form of social interaction and scent mingling. Try talking to someone without your tongue and tell me how that goes.

People declaw cats because they don’t want the cat to ruin their furniture. Declawed cats also tend to stop using their litter box because the litter feels like sandpaper against their painful toes. So when you have to throw away your fifth urine-drenched couch, be happy that at least the legs weren’t scratched up.

People declaw cats for lots of reasons. But if that cat develops a problem (or two, or ten), you have to do everything you can make it better. No amount of encouraging them to use the litter box will work if using the litter box is physical torture. Or if they’re too scared to leave from under the bed because they have absolutely no way to defend themselves. You can’t give that back to them.

I am powerless to help. I can give you suggestions that will make the cat’s life the best they can possibly have. But at the end of the day, it’s possible that your cat can’t use a litter box at all because they’re in too much pain. It’s possible that they’re going to keep spraying or marking not because they want to mark their territory but because they LITERALLY can’t do the thing that allows them to safely mark (scratching at a scratching post). I can’t really help you because I’m a Cat Behaviorist, and you’ve essentially made sure that you no longer have a cat.

But y’know. At least they didn’t claw up your chair.

I know people who have been coerced into declawing their animals. Whether for living spaces that would force them to abandon the animal or go without housing for both animal and human involved, or an imbalance in power within a social dynamic; whether roommates or parental/familial situations. It’s not pretty. It’s not EASY. And I don’t blame them for making the choice they felt they had to. I never will. 

I’ve owned declawed cats that were abandoned with us…. they did not integrate into the group, and for good reasons. They were traumatized and unable to defend themselves as completely as the others. (A front-declawed neutered male with intact toms…? Doesn’t work out so great.) Rocky got VICIOUS. He loved people, but the second it was too much you got BIT, or he’d tear scratches down your arms with his hindlegs. And that fucker was a BIG cat. 

One of my aunts had a declawed siamese. I’ve never HEARD a noisier animal. Not only the vocalization associated with the breed, but ALSO pain because her bowl was in the kitchen… on a tile floor. YIKES.

But then there’s the animals who just sort of accept it and move on with their lives… mostly. The ones where it’s kinda obvious they hurt, but they “don’t let it show.” The ones who still use the box, and snuggle, and don’t try to bite or do anything aggressive… but they don’t really play often either, they don’t scratch, they just sort of… drift. 

I’ve never seen a declawed cat with the zoomies. Never seen a declawed cat STREAK up a cat tree to receive love and pets. Either they’re loud and aggressive because they’re frightened and hurting, or they’re passive and drifty. They can be HELPED yes; given things and ways of feeling safer and more comfortable; but…..damn. It hurts my heart to see it.