Declawing of cats is a very controversial and hotly debated subject with a small group of veterinarians and cat owners. In their opinion, cats that are declawed will have physical, emotional, and behavioral complications. They feel that declawing may cause

• Surgical pain

• Surgical complications

• Imbalanced cats that no longer walk properly

• Lack of ability to defend themselves

• Change in behavior after surgery

• Litter box aversion or failure to use the litter box

• Increase stress in daily lives

I will admit surgical pain is real. Any patient undergoing surgery will have pain. Failure to use pain medication and allowing these cats to suffer is unacceptable. Pain must be managed. Thirty years ago, the veterinarian profession did not use pain medication as a routine practice in most surgical procedures. We said that animals did not suffer and sense pain as we did. We were guilty of causing unnecessary suffering. Today all veterinarians I know use pain medication regularly. The problem I am faced with today is animal caretakers who fail to give the pain medicine I send home because they decide the cat does not need it.

Surgical complications may occur with any surgery. The most common complications (roughly 1% of the surgical patients) is an infection at the site of surgery. These are resolved with the use of antibiotics. Other surgical complications reported in these discussions are tendon contracture and avascular necrosis. They are classified as rare complications, of which I have never seen.

Over they years, I have had both declawed and clawed cats in my household. I have seen no balance problems with declawed cats. They still jump up on the counters, walk along the deck rail, and even climb trees. I have not observed anything to make me feel as if they are imbalanced.

The argument suggesting that cats need to have claws for defense is misleading. Cats use their claws to hold their prey, to kill their prey,  and to tear apart the flesh and consume their victim. While cats may bat at a animal with their claws, they are unable to inflict any noticeable harm except in the rare case they strike the eye. Only people with our exposed skin suffer greatly from cat scratches. I have never treated another cat or dog for a cat scratch. On the other hand, I have treated many animals for cat bite wounds and infections. This is because cats' teeth are their defense weapon.

Most declaws are performed in young cats so behavior changes as the cat matures are difficult to identify as the result of surgery or for other reasons. There is not any behavior change that has been identified as occurring in only cats that have been declawed.

Declawing is an elective procedure that is only one of several methods to deal with cats claws and the associated scratching. This is an individual decision that each person should choose based on their own feelings and comfort zone.