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- cross-posted to:
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My ex-wife was pretty adamant about having the front claws removed from our girl. Not a day goes by that I feel terrible about it. My cat is now 14 and I see the discomfort in her when she walks.
That and circumcision were my hard lines with my ex wife.
Seriously. If you feel the need to cut chunks off of living things to make them suitable for you, maybe you don’t actually want them.
Yeah, docking dogs tails that don’t need it, I even heard of people in the 90s having dogs vocal cords cut. Like WTF god complex are they on.
I think these people view them as toys and not actual living animals.
the ways someone treats animals and retail workers are some of the best ways to judge character
Curious how you feel about spaying/neutering
I’m for it. I feel it’s justifiable as many cities have a cat overpopulation problem, plus it curtails destructive, difficult to control behaviors like spraying and that horrible yowling they make when they’re looking to Catflix and chill. If we didn’t have so many unhoused cats and they weren’t such raging dicks when they still have their gonads, I’d easily feel differently.
Thank god this has fallen out of vogue. I remember when most cats I met as a child seemed to be declawed.
Once you learn what it is, it’s hard to condone.
I feel the same about tail and ear docking, though with certain dogs (boxers I hear get repeated tail injuries) it seems there are still some legit reasons.
If want a cat, it’s going to scratch, it’s their nature. Why would you want a cat if you don’t like basic cat behavior?
Same as bird clipping. It’s a bird, I understand that there are some risks for flying animals, but why would you want a bird in the first place if you are going to cut its main mobility tool. Would you amputate one of your newborn’s legs so it has less risk of wandering around and being hit by a car?
Do the feathers at least grow back if the bird molts?
Yes, depending on the species they will molt 1-2x a year and the new feathers will be fine.
Well so do the legs of newborn humans, so that’s a perfectly valid comparison.
I mean, my comparison was more aimed towards the fact that they lose a shit ton of mobility for a reason that, if anything, shows your lack of ability to care for a bird. Also, while the feathers do indeed grow unlike human legs (and excluding prothesis), that doesn’t mean the owners will stop clipping them, plus, depending on when they started doing it, the bird may not even know how to fly and may not do it even if they are fully grown unless taught.
All your points are valid, but it was still a ridiculous comparison.
I agree. I won’t judge bird keepers, but it’s not for me.
My mother still declaws her cats, despite my telling her exactly what they do. She even had to switch vets once because her main vet began refusing to do it. I can’t understand how someone, knowing full well what happens, would still do it to an animal they allegedly love. She originally claimed clipping their nails was too much work and that cats will ruin her furniture, but now just refuses to talk about it after my wife and I have demonstrated practically no cat damage to anything in our home with four fully clawed cats, all raised as (asshole) kittens, over the course of about ten years.
I’ll remember all the cats she mutilated (plus all the other heinous shit she did when we were kids) when it’s time to pick her retirement home.
You can give a cat a scratching post and train them to use it. Our cat doesn’t destroy any furniture, only sharpens his claws on the scratching post. No need to mutilate him.
Yep, we have a cat tree with sisal rope for clawing.
I have a bunch of scratchers but one little kitty who still likes to stretch on door frames. Some of them have scratches, and that’s fine, because a house is meant to be lived in and I love my cats.
gotta love valuing furniture over their pets, god forbid they get scratches on their couch :(
Is the secret just that you socialized them as kittens? We have an older cat that we adopted who is generally very well behaved but loves to sink her claws into whatever she can, so we find little puncture holes in our leather stuff regularly. It is just cheap stuff, so no big loss, but I would love to feel comfortable splurging on something other than the 1-3 materials that are somewhat claw-safe. We try to clip her claws but she does not behave for that at all.
It’s a combination of things. We got three of our girls as kittens; in fact, one still IS a kitten. The fourth we got as an adolescent. The only cat that is a challenge is one that we got as a kitten. The rest are happy to decimate their cat tree.
Whenever we caught a cat scratching, we’d pick her up and relocate her to the tree, putting their paws on the sisal rope, then pet them and give them treats after they were done clawing it. After a many rounds (weeks, really) of this, they all started primarily using the tree.
The odd cat out is the most aggressive, dominant cat. She uses the tree the majority of the time but occasionally goes after our rugs, I think as a dominance display. I’m not really sure, she’s an asshole. Since love and treats didn’t cement the behavior, that kitty gets the spray bottle instead. The frequency of off-target scratching is slowly diminishing.
Thanks. I’ll try this in the future. She has scratch paraphernalia of various sorts that I’ve seen her use and enjoy but maybe the reinforcement part is what’s missing.
You’re welcome and good luck!
Cats are more intelligent and trainable than many people expect. I have one cat trained to come to the kitchen when it’s time for her pills and to hop on the bed at bedtime. She’s not exactly doing it on command - she’s happily rushing to me on her own because I’ve taught her that certain actions in certain situations result in her receiving a small blob of melted cheddar (which is how she gets her pills. Don’t tell her, she hates pills so it’s a secret) and/or belly rubs. I just call her name to get her attention and her routine starts.
I’ve learned many cats will often happily train themselves if you provide the right encouragement at the right time. It’s all about giving them a nicer alternative to whatever bullshit they’re pulling.
If you ever have any questions, I’m happy to help.
I caught her clawing the couch this morning. We just purchased a new lovesac with velvet covers, which are pretty resilient to this kind of abuse, because she is so inclined to do this. I think what happened was that she chased her little toy over to that corner and then had pent up aggression or energy that she decided to take out on that juicy couch corner. She has a scratch post on the other side of the couch because she is only very rarely on that side.
I tried picking her up and moving her to this scratch post (she hates being picked up) and putting her paws on the scratch post, but she gave me her most pitiful meow and decided she was done clawing lol. I’ve caught her clawing the couch on the other side right next to this scratch post, so maybe this scratch post isn’t as good as the couch for some reason. We know she likes vertical scratch posts and sisal, and she’ll definitely use that one, so beyond that I’m not sure what’s wrong with it.
sympathies. my wife and I tackle our cat for claw trims, it genuinely takes two people to manage. But also, one of our dogs requires the same so it’s dependent on the animal and experience. ironically, our other dog, a terribly abused animal that came with a food-distrust issue - is perfectly fine with her nails being trimmed and let our daughter paint her nails.
Every animal is different.
Removed by mod
Our neighbour’s cat sometimes visits. His claws are so sharp we’ve been tempted to try clipping them. But we won’t because A: we’re not trained for it and B: not our cat (on paper)
Yeah and they basically break the shit out of their paws so the claws never grow back. It’s insane.
There’s laser methods I guess that are less painful, but still completely fuck with basal instincts of those poor kitties.
Declawing sounds more like amputating the tip of your fingers (which does sort of make sense if you think of human nails)
Yah basically! It’s super fucked up.
Who are the sick fucks declawing cats for therapy
The procedure can be medically necessary in certain cases, like when a cat has a cancerous tumor or has severely injured a paw. But Tacoma’s ban won’t interfere with surgeries like that, the council’s release said.
Maybe this is what they’re referencing
I was just riffing on the ambiguous article headline. Like it’s okay to declaw cats as long as it’s for therapeutic reasons (for the owner)
Therapeutic literally means “relating to the healing of disease” though.
Do you think therapy dogs are giving therapy to other dogs?
Actually they do this, too!
They do to cheetahs
Yes, words can have multiple meanings. That’s why God made puns!
Yeah my parents back in the days had a lot of cats, and one of them had to have the claws taken off one paw. 😢
I read that to mean “for feline medical reasons.” If kitty has some injury or illness of the paw that necessitates amputation, that’s a valid reason. To prevent scratching up the furniture is not.
My mother-in-law’s cat almost got either declawed or euthanised when he started having epileptic seizures and attacking her face. It wasn’t intentional, he was an affectionate and gentle cat when he wasn’t seizing. Luckily, he seemed to grow out of it.
I like to take the claws and put them in a furry gauntlet to use for… science.
Well damn, I thought declawing was already illegal in Washington State. It looks like it’s currently just Maryland and New York, with some other states having restrictions.
Some people just don’t deserve cats.
