Felines - to de or not to de?

[Material Girl]

I want to know your views on declawing a household cat.

Everybody at the office assures me that it is perfectly fine to declaw a pet in the name of saving your furniture. Some of those people even let their cats outdoors after they've been declawed.
I'm in a dilemma because my cat will be spayed soon, and I need to decide whether to include the declawing in the same surgery so that she wouldn't have to go under anesthetic twice.

What say ye???

[Craxer]

do NOT declaw the poor kitty. How would you feel if you had the ability to climb trees in seconds and get declawed? Teach the cat a reflex

[King Missile]

Do not get a cat, get a hampster!

And don't get an animal if you don't like it the way it is, if i had a "Material Girl" as a pet i wouldn't put it through surgery of any kind to make it look nice.

[Puppet Master]

dont declaw. cats like there claws dont take it away from them

[aussie]

Declawing cats is MEAN.

[Spybreak!]

Originally posted by Craxer
do NOT declaw the poor kitty. How would you feel if you had the ability to climb trees in seconds and get declawed? Teach the cat a reflex

Cats can climb trees with ease even w/o front claws. When cats get declawed it doesn't make them any less of a cat. My kitty got declawed and he still owns every cat on the block.

Though if you really don't want to declaw your cat (for whatever reason), the other option is that you could do the reflex thing by classical conditioning; if your cat gets near furniture you do something to scare it. So it will grow a sense of not to get near furniture...but do you really want to abuse your little kitty and mentally scar her? Along with taking a lot of time out of your life to train the cute lil furbally.

[Craxer]

omfg i got it, by "cat" she means "pussy" and by "declaw" she means "shave". Elementary, newbs.

[Mayo Inc.]

Don't declaw a cat, it's like taking away it's escence (how do you really spell that?)

You wouldn't cut the wings off a bird would you? How do you expect it to defend itself against babies, toddlers and the like?

[Material Girl]

The thing is, she is completely an indoor cat. She is pampered as often as possible, and for safety reasons she is destined to remain an indoor cat for the rest of her life. She won't have to defend herself in any way as long as I'm around. So she doesn't need front claws to climb trees. - She'll never have the option.
I don't know what's worse... having a cat declawed or keeping them indoors. Anyway, the only thing I would do before I had her declawed would be to officially arrange where she would go if anything ever happened to me. That seems fair doesn't it? That way, the people she would go to would be very clearly informed that she is not equipped to fend off predators. And she would never wreck their furniture. Heaven Forbid. She would still have teeth and hind claws so declawing wouldn't render her totally helpless now would it? Someone told me that in the UK they don't even offer the declawing. It's still a dilemma. I'm still not sure about it.

[Liquid Blue]

If she is going to stay indoors all the time, then I say you should declaw her. It's not like she has to defend herself in anyway, or climb trees. The main thing she could do with her claws is scratch you (doubtful) or claw up your furniture. If she went outside every now and then I might think differently, but since she is going to stay inside all the time....why not.

[Spybreak!]

Did you even read my post?

It answers all your questions

[ÆNIMA]

There are plenty of alternatives.

In relation to Spy's post, there's a spray that you can use to spray on your furniture that the cat really dislikes. The stuff we have is called "Bitter Apple" but it's old and I don't know if it's still around, but look for scents like that. There are also pads that shock your animal (lightly of course) when they make contact with the pad. Again, I heard of those a while ago.

Another option is to have plenty of other scratchy things for the cat like scratching posts, or those little discs with the cardboard edges. Put catnip around those things so they take interest in those items before your furniture.

Unfortunately we never took these measures with our cats, and we have 2 very nice, and expensive Bose 901 speakers that are covered up with black trash bags because of the cats. And a neighbor's electric organ we're storing has a black trash bag over the speaker.

So a black trash bag is a good alternative

[WorstPlayerEver]

I would suggest that you read what it is that the do to declaw cats.. how would you like it if someone cut off the ends your fingers to the first knuckle?

[stark]

Originally posted by WorstPlayerEver
I would suggest that you read what it is that the do to declaw cats.. how would you like it if someone cut off the ends your fingers to the first knuckle?

or cuts... your fingernail?

[King Missile]

buy those shoes for kitty