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I am an animal activist and run a cat rescue organziation for several years now. The story about my 4 cats, who I declawed 10 years ago still hunts me to this day . Back than I owned 4 cats, lived in a big City and considered myself an animal lover, little I knew, that I knew nothing about the realty of the animal world. I decided to declaw my cats Pitch, Diva, Theo and Max, after being reassured by my former vet ( He had all his cats declawed!) that this will be a common procedure and nothing to fear! No problem( his words). The next day, I picked them all up, all covered in blood, all confused and in pain.
Theo died that day in my arms-he never recovered from the horror that I exposed him to. Diva and Max seemed fine, but what do I really know how they feel. They 'acted' normal, but Pitch became my problem cat. He started urinating everywhere ( and did it for the rest of his 12 year life) He was always in a 'bad' mood-in pain!! for the rest of his life. He used to be a sweet and loving cat before the declawing and became a moody unhappy cat afterwards.
It took years for me to forgive myself for being so uneducated, if I had known than what I know now, those special friends of mine would not have been suffered. Today I am running a cat rescue organziation and in the memory of my own experience advocate 'DO NOT DECLAW' wherever I go, telling my story. All our adopters have to sign a NOT DECLAW agreement and I pass on info with every adoption. Thank You for your site! Declawing is torture and most of the time I encounter people being uneducated about it! DO NOT DECLAW, there are soo many other alternatives and you may want to consider a different pet for your family, if you can't deal with the claws.
May 13, 2003
