Welcome to PIF Tails Declawing SiteThe Declawing procedure is expensive for you the owner and painful for your cat.
Your cat will not gain any physical or mental advantage by being declawed and may suffer painfully for life, as a result of this unnecessary painful operation.
Declawing is ten separate amputations procedures on your beloved cats toes. Each amputation removes the entire digit, bone and nail structure. The equivalent procedure in a human would be removing all ten fingers and toes at the FIRST joint.
Your cat will be guaranteed several weeks of extreme pain directly following this procedure.
In this time your pet will still have to walk around and dig in the litter tray using these painful wounded paws.
After some recovery time your cat will no longer seem to be in any pain but human amputations leave painful phantom limbs, we have no knowledge of whether cats suffer in a similar way.
It is very difficult to judge the level of pain a cat is in, as all vets use the strongest pain killing drugs on Declawed cats during and post operation, so logically vets must feel this is a very painful procedure.
Some cats learn to associate the pain they feeling with their litter trays; these cats will toilet in other places in order to avoid their litter trays, this can be a lifetime trait.
Other cats become withdrawn and wary of humans, scared as their primary source of defense has been removed.
They may turn to biting as their main source of defense and bites are more painful than the odd scratch.
In rare cases, a Declawed cat claw's grow back in a uncontrolled way, causing severe pain and the only respite for these symptoms is to be put though the Declawing procedure again, in some cases several times.
Cats walk on their toes, not the pads of their feet, and Declawing forces them to walk in an unnatural way.
A cat's claws are used for balance, for exercising, and for stretching the muscles in their legs, back, shoulders, and paws.
Cats stretch these muscles by digging their claws into a surface and pulling back against their own claw hold - similar to isometric exercising for humans.
This is the only way a cat can exercise, stretch and tone the muscles in their legs, back and shoulders, including the muscles around the heart.
Declawed cats are physically incapable of stretching in a complete manner, as they NEED the claws to do this.
As Declawed cats cannot exercise correctly, this leads to problems with their heart, chronic back and joint pain for life.
A cat's claws also play an important role in grooming and that grooming is the way a cat helps to control its body temperature, its scent signals and more
This is not proof, that your Declawed cat is unaware of the loss of claws but a natural habit to scent things, just like rubbing their face on an item. Some Declawed cats will constantly stretch, trying to relieve the strain in their tense muscles.
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Happily there are easier ways to train your cat to only scratch where you want.
Teaching a cat to use a scratching pole take 5 minutes versus a lifetime of potential painful problems, even inside cats need their claws to exercise and stretch correctly.
Any cat can be trained not to scratch furniture but it is easier to start the training as young as possible.
If no suitable scratching post is provided, your cat will find an alternative i.e. Carpet, Sofa, Bed Base.
There is a wide array of scratching posts which can be purchased, from standalone small posts to big cat trees with several scratching posts and shelves for your cat to sleep on.
Scratching posts can stand upright or lie along the floor.
Materials include sisal rope, carpet or real wood.
My cats particular enjoy scratching on bark covered logs we bring in for our real fire.
The post must not wobble or shift whilst being used, or else cats will not use it.
Rubbing catnip on a new scratching post encourages cats to use it.
Regular trimming of your cat's claws will help keep them healthy and prevent any damage or injuries. Buy a proper pair of cat nail clippers and check out this web site for detailed instructions on the proper way to cut your cats claws www.caws.org
Another solution is to use replaceable soft plastic caps for the claws called "Soft Paws" These soft plastic caps are glued onto a trimmed nail. They fall off as the cat shed old nails layers, so each claw cap will need replacing after a number of weeks. It would be easier to get your vet to apply them the first time, though Soft Paws are designed for an owner to apply them at home. Softpaws.com