What Does It Mean To Declaw Your Cat?

Thankfully, over the last few years many different places started raising awareness about what declawing really means for your kitty. In case you haven’t already heard, that’s also what I’m going to be talking about today.

There are all sorts of issues that can come out of declawing your cat. I’m not going to go over all of them but here is just a quick list:

• Phantom pains
• Elimination outside the litter box
• Arthritis
• More frequent biting

If you want to have a more extensive list, be sure to check out this video by Jackson Galaxy:

So declawing, is really deknuckling. In the picture above you can see what it would look like if a human underwent the declawing surgery. Just imagine how that would change how you do certain things. You would have a harder time picking things up, have a more difficult time typing on a computer, and I can imagine it would be pretty hard to crochet or play guitar too.

Cats walk on their tip toes, when you take away the tips of their toes, they can no longer do that. So they are forced to become flat footed which means they aren’t going to be as balanced as other cats.

My own cat is 4 paw declawed, not because I did it. But, because we adopted him already like that. After learning about all of the ways you can help cats be more comfortable after they have been declawed, I have been able to adjust the way I do things for my cat. It has definitely helped him to switch to a softer litter, keep things closer to the ground, and to play with him on rugs and carpet. He is a special cat and is worth all of his quirks, and bad habits!

If you own a declawed cat I would recommend you check out the book Indoor Cat. It has lots of great ideas about how to adjust things for your specific kitty.

That’s all for today’s post. If you are interested in learning more about declawing, please watch the video above because it has some great places you can go to for more information. Thanks for reading!

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