I've declawed just the front paws of the cat I had. She was totally normal after the operation and had no issues and functioned normally. I kept her back ones because I didn't see the need to take those off. She was kind of a spazz and would run around like crazy over furniture, up curtains and rip everything up. If the cat isn't the typed to do that, then I wouldn't do it. Either way...I think of it like removing a dewclaw from a dog. My parents have a Chihuhua with dewclaws in the front and he catches them on EVERYthing...my parents had to take him to the vet so many times to get stitched back up, and funnily enough, the vet never mentioned removing them. Last time I visited I told them they should have the vet remove them because he got caught up in the screen door. They did and now he's fine. Look at it more from the necessity stand point than from just because other people do it.