foxjumper wrote:
I'll be adopting a kitten from a friend who's cat was knocked up and while I wait for him to turn old enough for me to snag, I began thinking about the pros and cons of declawing.

When I was younger we had female cats in the house and male cats outside. All of our female cats were from friends or shelters, where as the male cats were strays that hung out. The outside cats were never declawed because my parents felt they needed their weapons to survive, but the inside cats were declawed. When I was older I began reading the pros and cons about declawing and found a lot of the symptoms that go along with declawing seemed to plague our inside cats.

When I got my own place and my own cats, I decided to never have them declawed. I never had any problems with shredded furnature. My cat, Klunk, will grab the carpet and pull himself along it while he lays down (he's a bit odd) but thats really all he ever uses his claws for...other than an appropriate slap to a dog thats being too playful.

So what're your views on declawing? I know its been banned in some places and certain vets will refuse to do the procedure these days. Do you have declawed cats or do you keep the claws? What're your reasons for it?


I never declawed because of how traumatic the surgery is to a cats paw - some cats it bothers later, some it doesn't. I've assisted in declaw surgeries and that helped me decide I wouldn't declaw.

But many can get litterbox issues from it if anything else. I found it MUCH EASIER to just clip my cats nails if I worried. Honestly though, I have never seen a cat do so much destruction that would warrant a declaw. Maybe soft paws if I was super picky and didn't want my cat clawing on the occasional rug... but to me, clawing is so easily managable I just don't see a need to do that to them. And, life throws curve balls sometimes, so we never have a guarantee we are going to be here tomorrow for that animal, and the next person may throw the declawed cat outside..