Surgery on animals

[Catholic90]

Your kitten did OK, partly due to his small size, and I’m glad it worked out for you. But this isn’t always the case. I know someone whose cat’s feet were so tender that when she used the litter box the first time right after being declawed, the coarsely-textured litter on her fresh wounds caused much pain and left a lasting impression. Kitty associated the pain with the box, not her feet, and refused to use the box for a long time. And several people have reported that their declawed cats tend to bite. That would make sense, because the cat’s first line of defense has been literally cut away. I have never had anything more serious than a “love-nip” from any of my cats, although I have been scratched a few times. If the humans in the household are getting scratched on a routine basis, perhaps some training in “cat-psychology” would help. Many people don’t know how to read signs of aggression in cats, esp. if they are inexperienced owners. If the cat starts to show these signs and you don’t leave it in peace to cool off, you will get scratched and/or bitten.

I am an experienced servant of cats. (Anyone who has cats know that humans do not own cats, but it is the CAT who ALLOWS humans to serve them). I have been around cats my entire 40-something years and currently share my household with 3 of them (16 years, 6 years, and 5 months).

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I and my kids WERE getting scratched AND we clipped his claws for the first 2 months we had him before we got him declawed. He would play and out the claws would come. We would be going to sleep or sound asleep, and he would attack the FACE with his claws. It was not aggression, it was play.

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Other than play bites, he has never bitten us humans. He does attempt to bite our other cats, but they QUICKLY put him back in place with a quick swat, roll over, etc. He also attempts to bite our 85 pound dog on the nose while he is napping. Understand this is entirely UNPROVOKED - the kitten is play-attacking. Our understanding dog (a mere 10 months old himself) simply puts his large paw on the kitten and then licks him head to tail, which just makes the kitten mad. It is quite funny to watch.

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(When the dog is out of his kennel, the kitten will walk inside it and curl up for a nap, so I think they rather like each other.

I don’t know if I would change my mind about declawing if I had small children in the house. But I do know that I would exhaust the other options before I would do that to my feline friends.

We gave it 2 months and 8 clippings. After countless blood drawings from all of us and from the dog’s nose (again, unprovoked), we declawed. No regrets at all.

Our other 2 cats were also declawed and have never had any problems.

 

[Newbie2]

I’ve gotten the impression that the Church has no regard for pets at all. Considering the high cost of veterinarians, it’s easy get the feeling that those in the Church would prefer that money spent on pets should be donated to the Church instead.

Several times, I’ve mentioned the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on my animals over the years and Catholics seem to be the most horrified.

My pets are my most precious possessions.

OUCH! “High cost”?

That’s how I feed my family. Conisdering the quality of state-of-the-art veterinary care available today and inflation, veterinary care today is quite a bargan. It may seem like a lot, though, when it all is out of pocket. And we don’t get rich off of it; I drive a '99 chevy.

The Church doesn’t have much to say about animals, other than our stewardship duties. Sorry that you run into some that don’t see the value of pets (and the importance of keeping them healthy!).

Another comment on surgery in pets. Proper anesthesia and pain management protocols nowadays make surgery quite comfortable for pets, regardless of the type of surgery. In fact, one of my biggest challenges in practice is to urge owners to keep their pets from jumping, running and playing the day after surgery and beyond; most pets don’t realize they’ve even had surgery and act accordingly.

Again, I’m not advocating declawing all or even most cats, but when the surgery is performed correctly and proper analgesia used, there is a minimum of pain or discomfort, and virtually no long term side effects.

BTW, most veterinarians do not suggest that declawed cats use regular clay or clumping litter post-surgically for a week or two We use “Yesterday’s News”, which is a recycled paper litter product for our patients.