declawing cats

Question
We recently had to put down our 18 year old cat and are not thinking of adopting 2 kittens from the humane society.  Since are cats are indoor cats we have declawed them in the past but have been reading that it is not necessary and is cruel and painful.  What do you think>

Answer
First, anyone, please don't bother flaming me or sending me nasty letters. I understand that declawing is a very very sensitive issue, and there is no real answer. You can ask the very same question to all the other allexperts in the Cat section and get either similar responses, or surprisingly different ones.

Some entire countries (England comes to mind) ban declawing. Breeders will rarely place kittens in a home unless there is a declaw clause in the sales contract, and as I understand it, some vets and clinics refuse to declaw. Some cat rescue groups will deny a family a cat/kitten if they plan to declaw, while others will have the cat/declawed themselves just so the pet can have a home. Some vets can butcher a declaw, others remove them quite expertly. Some cats recover without a hitch, others will refuse to use a litterbox, even walk, since the feet do not heal. For every person who claims that a declawed cat cannot function/defend itself outside, there's another with a four-foot declawed cat that is the terror of the neighborhood. The jury is still out on whether declawing a cat turns it into a biter. As you can see, there really is no answer in that.

I'm sure you know the details, that declawing is the removal of not only the claw,  but the entire last digit of the toe (bluntly, it's the amputation of the fingertip in humans; let's say you'd have a tough time playing guitar after such surgery). It is not like the removal of dewclaws, which are extra, unattached digits that dogs and some cats have.

I personally don't care for declawing, never had it done to any of my cats, and having been a vet tech to a vet that would cajole cat owners to declaw along with a neuter as a sort of 'two-for-the-price-of-one', I have issues with the idea that it's a common, non-traumatic thing to do. Clipping nails is not a big thing, especially since it takes only a few minutes; cats will still need something to scratch since there are scent pads on the bottoms of the toe pads, scratching is instinctive, so you will still need a scratching post. And some declawed cats tend to grow calluses on the stubs, so they can still cause damage to a sofa if there is no alternative cat-tree nearby. If you are worried about your furniture, carpet or curtains, buy a couple of sturdy sisal rope cat trees and keep the cat's nails trimmed. My husband and our dogs (none declawed) have done more wear and tear on our floors and furniture.

All that being said, I will go out on a limb (as a former cat breeder) and state that there are sometimes in which a declaw is necessary (outside of a medical issue in which there is some accidental damage to the paw). I once placed a kitten with a family with a member who was HIV, and if there was any concern on the part of the owner that the kitten could inadvertently scratch that person, a declaw would be done. I feel the same with someone with diabetes (legs being swiped by a playful kitten could cause the person to end up in the hospital). And there are the individual cats that are play-aggressive, where the front legs are used for everything. They will latch themselves to anything and use their claws as anchors. In this instance, a declaw would be an alternative to a cat brought into the shelter as a mean cat, or a euthanized cat, even though there would still be the issue of a cat latching on to legs and arms.

And after all this digressing, to answer your original question, personally, IMHO, two indoor kittens don't need to be declawed. Given enough playtoys, scratching posts, routine claw-trimming, and each other to play with, it would not be necessary. Do I think declawing is necessary? Not unless medically called for. Painful? Any surgery causes pain, but with pain meds and time to heal, a vast majority of cats heal well and are pain-free.

Even if all the above sounds like I'm passing judgment, I'm not. Declawing has its pros and cons, just like any other elective surgery, and like indoor versus outdoor cats, will remain a topic that ultimately will be determined by the owner.