I personally would not de-claw a cat, and with regard to keeping them in all the time, I am lucky that I live in a house on a quiet dead end street, with a large garden in England where cats don't face the same dangers they do in other places. There are hazards of course, but the likelihood/frequency of an incident is fairly low.

In the last 20 years I have lost 2 to accidents that would have been avoided had they been house cats, one in 1998 and one in 2007. I've met house cats (expensive pedigrees here in the UK and many cats at home in the USA) and it seemed to me they were always desperate to escape outside, I came to the conclusion that as devastating as it is to lose a cat before its time, they enjoy their freedom and the risk was low enough to allow them that freedom. Though I can totally understand why this is not always possible in other places.



Last Edited By: skint May 29 09 10:37 AM. Edited 1 times.