Thursday, January 26, 2012

Bite Me!

The first thing I had done to our cat when she came into our home, was to bring her to the vet to have her 'fixed' and declawed.  Most people would applaud me for being a responsible pet parent by having her spayed.  However, a good many of these same people would vilify me for the declawing.  It seems as if the declawing is actually the amputating of the first joint of the cat's toes and not just removal of the claws.  I'll accept this, as I know nothing to dispute it.  However, all of the 'side effects' that people say a cat has to live with because of this procedure haven't cropped up in my cat--as far as I can tell, that is.  She has always been a HOUSE cat, so she never needed her claws for defensive purposes or to hunt.  (And she has never given the impression that she ever WANTED to hunt, so...)  I believe she has been a happy animal for her entire life and I know she has lived a good, long life BECAUSE she has been declawed.  I KNOW I never would have put up with this:


:D

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:14 PM

    I want another cat but the spouse frowns severely when it is mentioned. I WILL eventually get another. Have to have a cat that is used to going to the bathroom outside. I will not have an indoor litter box. Our last cat spoiled us that way but then he adopted us and we had part in his upbringing.

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  2. Oh snap! When we had cats they were always INDOOR pets and declawed!

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  3. vicomtesse: As our cat gets older, I am less happy about the litter box. But, we HAVE to have them, as we have leash laws in this town for cats as well as dogs. And because some people don't believe in leashing their animals, I can't put our cat outside anymore--she would be a sitting duck for attack.

    We will go some time before getting another cat after ours dies. Even though it is no way as hard to leave town with a cat as it is with a dog, we still find it is difficult to get someone to stop into the house daily when we leave.

    I like the idea of having a dog, but travel would be severely limited if we did. There is a good possibility that we will, someday, have one, but not until we are done 'seeing the world.'
    ;)

    meleah: Even The Youngest doesn't frown on declawing--and SHE works in a vet clinic. I think the entire household is much happier without claws, than with.

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  4. Anonymous7:31 PM

    You have leash laws for cats?? I wish we had that here, there are at least three feral cats running around my street that I know of. I think it's crueler to let them be exposed to the elements and to have to find their own food than to have them adopted or (gasp) put down. I know there are people who believe that it's terrible to put down any animal that can't find a home, but how else are we going to avoid being overrun?

    If I had a cat, I'd want it declawed too. A long, long time ago, I had a cat once, a kitten, and that cat showed its displeasure at being repeatedly put on the floor when I was eating at the table that it actually leaped at my back, claws extended. That was NOT pleasant. And it did that more than once. I finally had to give it up.

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  5. I'm assuming that some dog owners got into a snit about cats being allowed to run loose, so now they aren't allowed to roam. I'm not upset about that in the least. I'm certain that our cat wouldn't have lived as long as she has if she had been an outdoor/indoor cat--we have far too many wild animals in the area and she would have run into one of them by now. But, just as some people don't leash their dogs, we still have people who won't keep their cats in their own yards. And that REALLY tends to piss me off. ;)

    We got our first cat when we moved to this town and were living in a very tiny two-bedroom trailer. That cat would sit in the doorway of the first bedroom and run and attack my legs whenever I walked down the hallway. Eventually, he might have grown out of that and been fine, but I got pregnant and couldn't handle the chasing and scratching, so we had to bring him to the Humane Society. He used his claws FAR too much--against people and the furniture, etc--and it wasn't difficult to give him up. Things might have been much different if he had been clawless.

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