Declaw for health

Just over two years ago my husband and I adopted a cat from the local shelter. We LOVE our cat. My husband has been in nursing school during this time and as school drew near the end we started to wonder if we should get our furry friend declaw-ed. We were worried that since my husband and the cat play a lot and frequently the cat will catch him with his claws causing open scratches on his arms that we were putting my husbands health at risk sending him into hospitals for 40+ hours a week.

We did some research but everything we found was very polarizing. Animal rights advocates in strong disagreement with those who are wanting to save their furniture. We talked with some people we knew and they said their cats survived the process. I even found one other person who had done it for health reasons after her child contracted cat scratch fever. She supported the idea that we had, as much as we love our cat it is not worth risking my husbands long term health and career.

So I called the vet and asked if they did the process. They said yes and we set an appointment.

Two days after the appointment my cat came home with bandages on his paws. I felt like an awful cat mom. That first night he got one of the bandages off. Four days latter he got the other one off. It was the weekend and the 2nd paw was looking very swollen and had blood. Of course my cat would not leave it alone. On Monday when I got home from work I brought him back to the vet. They had to keep him, the next day the called and said they were going to have to remove some of his paw because the skin cells were dead. They kept him a few more days and had to put stitches in. He came home and lived with a bandage for 10 days, we would periodically take him back to the vet for a fresh bandage.

On Monday I brought him in and they wanted to keep him so that they could get the bandage off. I got him back on Friday and his paw is gone, all that he has is the pad where his thumb should be. Yesterday it started bleeding so we went to the emergency vet who put him back on antibiotics and re-bandaged him. She said that in the 10 years she has been doing this she has seen this happen enough that she is not shocked by it and we were just the unlucky ones.

I feel like a horrid person now. I am upset that my vet did not warn us, I am upset that the polarizing information on this practice prevented us from having accurate information. I am upset that my cat has had the worst month of his life and so long as nothing else happens will be slightly amputated for the remainder of his days.

Selecting to have your pet declawed is a personal choice and one you and your family must make. There is a strong voice that says this is an inhumane practice. There is another voice that says they are our pets and we have to make choices so they can be part of our family. Because of these two opinions the practice continues on. Complications do happen. It happened to us and I will never declaw an animal again. I ask that you think about the real chance of something going wrong before you decide if declawing is what you and your family want to do.