Declawing.
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wrathofachilles — 11 years ago(September 21, 2014 08:37 AM)
Declawing is only acceptable if (1) it's medically necessary for the cat (NOT for any humans) and (2) the alternative is euthanasia. In all other cases, no, no, no, and no. Don't declaw, don't rent from landlords who require declawing, and name and shame ones who do. If you're seriously thinking about declawing your cat, you probably shouldn't have a cat. Cats aren't the right pet for every person and every lifestyle, and that's okay.
You can prevent damage from scratching by:- Giving your cat enough surfaces to scratch (scratching posts, cardboard scratchers, mats made of rough material, etc.) and rewarding appropriate scratching behavior. Even if you have a huge house, a scratching post in every room is less expensive than declawing, and far more humane as well.
- Cordoning off cat-free areas of your home and keeping valuable items there. Cats are ninjas and they'll try to get in, but using a spray bottle with water is effective in keeping cats out of certain areas.
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ih8tt — 11 years ago(October 20, 2014 10:27 PM)
do you realize that "declawing" a cat is not 'simply' pulling out the claws, which would be bad enough, but it's also removing the bone at the very end/tip of each toe, it's maiming your cat and should be illegal, same as docking a dog's tail and doing their ears to make them look more 'menacing' or to fit some outdated breed standard from when they fought some other poor animal
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nubyan — 11 years ago(October 26, 2014 01:11 AM)
A cat should never be declawed for any reason and most reasons are selfish and please don't take this the wrong wayignorant. We can't possibly know how or what a cat feels from after being declawed. Their claws are a part of their defense mechanism against other cats and other animals. Even when I get my cats claws trimmed it alters her world significantly until they begin to grow back and become sharp again. Just running and leaping onto to the bed or the couch is affected because when they extend their claws they have no way of grabbing and latching on to prevent from falling. Cats are acrobatic marvels and that part of their hard wiring will never change If you take their claws away it places them at risk to be seriously injured. God forbid if they ever escaped your home, they would be completely defenseless. No way to fight or flight by scaling a fence or tree. It's instinct for them to extend their claws everyday in life. Imagine doing that everytime several times throughout the day and realizing everytime that you don't have claws. But yet some people say that the cat is okay. Okay my a$$! Lets remove your fingernails and see how you get along in life. Something as simple as alleviating an itch is now impossible unless you have a tool. Guess what? Their claws are their tools. The things people do to aminals for their own selfish reasons is astonishing and heartbreaking. If you don't want to mess up your house or furnishingsdon't get a cat. Please!
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SapphEyeR — 11 years ago(January 24, 2015 03:21 PM)
Their claws are a part of their defense mechanism against other cats and other animals.
You should be keeping your cats indoors. They wreak havoc on the natural environment by killing billions of wild animals each year, especially birds, many of which are becoming endangered. -
nubyan — 11 years ago(January 24, 2015 11:34 PM)
@SapphEyeR: By all means, my cat IS an indoor catwith all her claws. However, they can accidentally get out which is the point that I was trying to make to the OP and that a declawed cat has NO DEFENSE to protect itself if that should happen. And unfortunately, it happens quite often. Example: house guests or people working in your home. I always have to sequester my cat if I have a lot of activity going on in my home that she's not accustomed to. You never know if something will spook them and they bolt to an open door which could lead them straight outdoors.
As for people who do allow their cats to go outdoorsI don't agree because of the safety issues only. Cats are natural predators. So for the other wildlife that they may encounter, that's simply the balance of nature. No different from humans being carnivorous ourselves. -
SapphEyeR — 11 years ago(January 26, 2015 06:57 AM)
Cats are natural predators. So for the other wildlife that they may encounter, that's simply the balance of nature.
Wrong. There's nothing natural about the presence of a cat or any other domesticated animal in the outdoors. A cat or a sheep is a foreign entity, not part of the natural environment.
The balance of nature refers to flora and fauna that have evolved together for millions of years, achieving a kind of balance wherein one does not wipe out the other. Cats are an introduced predator. Introduced predators can have disastrous effects on the existing fauna. Look at the zebra mussel that has invaded lakes in the U.S. Not having evolved with natural enemies here, it has multiplied and caused the disappearance of native species that it preys upon or competes with.
Cats were domesticated by humans, they were plucked from their original native land, altered by selective breeding for certain characteristics, plopped down in all sorts of places where they didn't originate.
Cats were bred to be mousers and some kill far in excess of what they would naturally eat. They have a huge impact on native birds in the U.S. Many bird species are become rarer because of human stresses on them and their ability to raise young. It's a slippery slope from rarity to "threatened" status to extinction.
We humans impact the environment just by our growing population. We are out of balance with nature due to our numbers and our influence. We're neutralizing nature when we build new houses on pristine land. But the owners of those houses could choose to make their yards more nature-friendly or not.
A neighborhood with cats running loose is not a nature-friendly environment. -
nubyan — 11 years ago(January 26, 2015 01:35 PM)
@SapphEyeRWhoa, you're preaching to the choir over here! Still, humans are the culprit for fuching up the eco-system by introducing certain species to geographical areas to which they don't belong. If a cat gets loose, it's going to do what comes naturalHUNT! They were wild way before they became domesticated.
In any case, I hear you. So pump the brakes. -
SapphEyeR — 11 years ago(January 26, 2015 03:41 PM)
It sounds like you keep your cat in ONLY because you're worried about its safety. You're worried about the impact a coyote might have on it, but not the impact it might have on the population of birds? Am I right?
I don't think we belong to the same choir. -
nubyan — 11 years ago(January 26, 2015 04:07 PM)
Damn straight, because I love my cat! I really don't understand people who can't understand the natural balance of nature. It disturbs them to wrap their minds around an animal in prey and its predator. All living creatures have to eat. You say we're not the same. So be it if that's how you feel. Regardless, I love animals and I love nature. And I also do what I can to protect both. I would say that we're probably more alike than we are different on the subject. In any case, I respect your opinion.
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SapphEyeR — 11 years ago(January 26, 2015 06:18 PM)
I really don't understand people who can't understand the natural balance of nature. It disturbs them to wrap their minds around an animal in prey and its predator. All living creatures have to eat.
No, I understand predation. You don't understand the term "balance of nature" because you obviously think it's synonymous with predation, which is what you are describing. It's not.
"Balance of nature" is when predators and prey are in balance, neither species wipes the other one out. It takes thousands of years of co-evolution to achieve this balance. Coyotes hunt Canada geese, and they get better at catching them, but the geese get better at evading them, too. It's an uneasy standoff, neither species entirely kills they other. They need each other. If the coyotes killed all the geese, they might starve. If the geese evaded all the coyotes there would be too many geese and the geese would eat all the vegetation and would starve.
Introduce certain things into the mix, domesticated animals, or alien animals, and you don't have this balance anymore. The nonnative animals may have a certain advantage that the rest of the ecosystem has not had time to evolve defenses against. With cats, they kill excessively because they were bred to do so. They could wipe out smaller species including birds that are already stressed by loss of natural habitat and other human activity. -
nubyan — 11 years ago(January 26, 2015 07:23 PM)
I fully understand both cases and the differences. What I think you don't understand is that I'm speaking of the predatory instinct of a cat. It does what it does based upon its hard wired instinct that dates back to previous generations from being in the wild. That's not due to breeding. Egyptians worshipped cats and kept them around to naturally control the rodent population. I hear and understand everything you've said. Don't place the emphasis on the cat concerning the woes of an ecosystem. The emphasis and responsibility belongs solely on the human population. That's the point that I'm trying to make.
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SapphEyeR — 11 years ago(January 27, 2015 10:10 AM)
I fully understand both cases and the differences. What I think you don't understand is that I'm speaking of the predatory instinct of a cat. It does what it does based upon its hard wired instinct that dates back to previous generations from being in the wild. That's not due to breeding.
As I said before, cats KILL MORE THAN THEY NEED TO EAT. That kind of behavior is not natural predator behavior. That is due to breeding by humans. Natural predatory behavior is to kill what the animal needs for nutrition and then take a rest.
Egyptians worshipped cats and kept them around to naturally control the rodent population.
You threw the word "natural" in there, but the amount of killing a cat does is not natural behavior, it is behavior that was bred into them by humans. If they did this in the wild, they would use up their food supply and would starve and die out.
Don't place the emphasis on the cat concerning the woes of an ecosystem. The emphasis and responsibility belongs solely on the human population. That's the point that I'm trying to make.
Of course cats are not the only threat to ecosystems, there are many, many others. But they are one more threat that WAS introduced by humans and they can be controlled. We should control the threats that we are able to. To paraphrase, the emphasis and responsibility of removing the threat from cats belongs solely on the human population.
In other words, responsible cat owners who truly "love nature" keep their cats indoors. -
nubyan — 11 years ago(January 30, 2015 07:50 PM)
Good LordI give up. As I said, cats act upon instincts and their own natural behavior. In fact, that same behavior can be seen as they play. They eat what they hunt. Unlike humans who hunt for sport and not always food.
And again, my cat is an indoor catregardless of my reason. She's also spayed.
Work on changing humans and their behavior and cut a cat some slack.
Goodbye SapphEyeR. I'm doneconversation over! -
SapphEyeR — 11 years ago(January 31, 2015 11:55 AM)
They eat what they hunt.
They don't. They eat cat food and line up the mice and birds on the welcome mat to please their mistress.
Goodbye SapphEyeR. I'm doneconversation over!
That's advisable, because even though you keep saying "I understand", you obviously have understood very little of what I have said. Par for the course.
But I am glad you keep your cat indoors regardless of your motive. -
lougarry33 — 11 years ago(February 05, 2015 11:10 AM)
In my opinion, domestic cats remain kittens, never reaching feline emotional maturity. Adult pet cats meow. Research suggests that adult cats don't communicate with each other through meows, only kittens with their mothers. Cats communicate with their owners in meows because they see their owners as surrogate mothers. Widespread neutering is a very responsible practice yet also one that reinforces this extended kittenhood. This may, then, have something to do with why pet cats may continue to hunt with no need or desire to eat their prey. Have you ever seen mother cats teaching their kittens to hunt? The kittens bat the poor half-dead prey about, practising. This is also how cats play with cat toys.
Getting back to the original topic: Declawing is cruel and barbaric. I'd rather like to cut off the top finger joints of all humans who have subjected their cats to this torture with a machete. -
SapphEyeR — 11 years ago(February 07, 2015 10:13 AM)
You pet owners think of yourself as nature-friendly by extension from your love for your pets, but there's no correlation between loving a cat or dog and caring about the rest of nature. Most of you are very ignorant of how nature works and of how and why dogs and cats were domesticated, judging from this board.
If you let your cat outdoors, you are being bad to the environment. Read what I said above as to why.
Also, you fret over treatment of individual pets, when ENTIRE SPECIES of other animals are being wiped out. Tigers, elephants, lions, rhinos, many birdsthey will be completely gone from the wild in a few short decades. They will only exist in zoos, unless enough people decide nature is worth saving and change some of their behaviors. Does anybody care?
There will never be any shortage of cats, dogs, and horses in the world, but wild SPECIES are in danger for THEIR VERY EXISTENCE and need your help more. Why don't you put some of your energy and money into saving them instead of just focusing on pets? -
rdpepper210 — 10 years ago(April 20, 2015 08:31 AM)
My cat is also an indoor cat but she did get out once accidentally, but was smart enough to stay by the front door until I saw her and let her in. She was in her hind paws batting at the insects.
But not all cats have a hunting instinct, some have to be taught to hunt. I had cats and parakeets, one bird got out, the cat almost killed it, another cat we used to put a bird on his head and he could care less, he had no interest in anything but fetching a ball of paper, didn't even look at the birds.