Why declawing should never be taken lightly & humane alternatives

There seem to be two very different schools of thought when it comes to declawing cats – those who see it as no big deal, and those who gasp in horror at the mere idea of someone even considering it. And where most controversial issues attract differing opinions due to personal beliefs or values, declawing is an issue that I think only has such a variance of reactions because one of the sides simply doesn’t know enough about declawing.

To some, declawing is nothing more than a logical step before bringing a kitten or cat into their home. Nobody wants their couches shredded to ribbons, so they quickly make a call to their vet and book a declawing appointment and that’s that. They never do any research into the surgery and maybe even the vet recommends it, or plays it down to be a ‘minor surgery’ – and why wouldn’t they; it’s a pricey surgery that no doubt keeps their clinic doing well. Declawing is now a $3 billion a year industry for the North American vet community. The fact is, there’s a reason that declawing has been illegal in England for several years. Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Wales, Finland and Brazil are among the many countries that either consider declawing illegal or inhumane, and only allow it under extreme circumstances.

It’s unfortunate that declawing is so popular across North America, and that so many people do it so blindly. Because when it comes down to it, declawing is nowhere near a minor surgery. It is actually a surgical amputation of the first joint of a cat’s toes. It has absolutely no positive impact on the cat, but is a surgery that’s only conducted for the convenience of humans – and there are so many humane solutions to the issue of furniture scratching that it just seems completely unnecessary.

The best way to think of declawing is as 10 amputations. And after the initial painful surgery, there can be pain for weeks and months afterward as the nerve endings heal. While the cat is experiencing this painful recovery, they are still forced to use their front paws frequently in order to use the litter box and to clean themselves, along with just moving around to eat and sleep. Dr. Nicholas Dodman describes the pain following surgery in his book The Cat Who Cried for Help: “Unlike routine recoveries, including recovery from neutering surgeries, which are fairly peaceful, declawing surgery results in cats bouncing off the walls of the recovery cage because of excruciating pain.”

There can be serious complications with declawing surgery, such as excruciating pain, damage to the radial nerve, hemorrhage, bone chips that prevent healing, painful regrowth of deformed claw inside of the paw which is not visible to the eye, and chronic back and joint pain as shoulder, leg and back muscles weaken. (Declawing.com) It’s also been observed that declawing can affect a cat’s temperament negatively, can cause litter box avoidance, and can even cause severe arthritis in older cats. (Pawsneedclaws.com)

Not to mention that declawing robs a cat of its chief weapon of defense – at the Lincoln County Humane Society, many cats are brought to the shelter as declawed strays. That means these cats were left to fend for themselves on the streets, with no mode of protection against potential predators. States the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, “Declawing of domestic cats should be considered only after attempts have been made to prevent the cat from using its claws destructively or when clawing presents a zoonotic risk for its owner(s).”

Now, many shelters won’t even adopt out to potential adoptees who reveal that they plan on declawing their cat. At the very least, most shelters will inform people or provide literature about what is actually involved in declawing, to allow them to make an educated decision. Unfortunately, I’ve recently discovered that at the Lincoln County Humane Society, they don’t do either, and in fact LCHS will even schedule the declawing appointments for adopted cats so that the surgery can be completed at the same time as a spay/neuter. (***Update: Effective today – Jan. 31, 2011, declawing will NOT be offered as an option to adopters at LCHS. Yay!***)

As I mentioned, there are several humane alternatives to declawing a cat. Here are a few of the most common:

• Soft paws: Soft paws are vinyl nail caps that are placed over a cat’s claws and grow out with the natural growth of your cat’s claws. They last an average of 4-6 weeks and cost about $10-15.
• Scratching posts: Give your cat something they can safely scratch instead of your furniture – sprinkle cat nip or treats on the posts to encourage your cat to scratch it.
• Train your cat: For whatever reason, most people seem to think that the idea of training a cat is preposterous, but it’s been proven time and again that cats are highly trainable animals. They just may need to be trained a little differently than dogs, as they cannot be forced into doing something they don’t want to do. You can try clicker training for cats, or you could try gently spraying a small amount of water each time your cat attempts to scratch something you don’t want them to. The idea is to have them thinking that the water comes from the furniture they’re scratching, not from you, so that they make the association between scratching the furniture and the unpleasant squirt of water. Keep in mind this must be done when you catch your cat in the act of scratching your furniture – any correction afterward will not be useful.
• Regular nail trimming: It’s difficult for cats to do any major damage to furniture with blunt nails. Nail trimming is a simple procedure that you can do on your own with your cat. It’s not always the easiest of tasks with certain cats, but you can trim in short sessions and choose to do so when your cat is sleepy and relaxed.
• Double stick tape: If your cat insists on scratching certain items in your home, you can put double sided tape to discourage the scratching as cats dislike the sticky feeling on their paws.

Remember that scratching is a very natural and necessary behavior for cats – if you’re discouraging your cat from scratching any of your furniture, you should be providing a cat-friendly outlet for their scratching.

The bottom line with declawing is that it is a major surgery that many pet owners decide for their cats without really researching and weighing their alternatives. It’s an unnecessary evil that can easily be avoided with a little bit of effort on behalf of the owner. If cats could talk, I guarantee they’d plead with us humans to spare their claws.

Further reading:

• The Benefits of scratching for cats
• A list of veterinarians in the US and Canada who do not declaw unless under necessary circumstances
• Top Reasons not to declaw a cat
• Reasons not to declaw and easy solutions

– Post by Kristen (Rather Fetching Pet Sitting & Dogwalking | Serving Niagara)

Enrichment for high energy dogs

High energy dogs and kennels go together like oil and water, or stripes and plaid. They just don’t mix well; and when you’ve only got, say, 20 minutes to tire out a hyper Husky, you’re pretty much out of luck unless you incorporate some mental stimulation.

Turner is one of the young, active dogs at LCHS who would benefit from enrichment training

There are a lot of different enrichment activities you can do with high energy dogs that will tire them out much more in 10 minutes than a half hour in the yard will. The big problem with active dogs in shelters is that they need to alleviate serious amounts of stress, boredom, and extra energy – and there’s not much to entertain them inside their less-than-spacious kennels.

Megan and I were able to attend a couple of training seminars while we were at Best Friends Animal Society about Enrichment for High Energy Dogs, and we hope to put some of the suggestions to use with the shelter dogs at the Lincoln County Humane Society where we volunteer.

Outside of humane societies, these activities are also great for young, active dogs you may have at home, so that while you’re at work you can still be ‘exercising’ your dog, so to speak. They can also be helpful for dogs with separation anxiety – so rather than whining and tearing your couch apart while you’re away, your dog might spend his energy trying to get that last bit of peanut butter out of his Kong instead. A lot of behavioural problems stem from bored dogs – here are some ways to engage dogs that need a little something beyond the daily routine.

1. Kongs & Food Puzzles

Evolutionarily speaking, dogs are hard-wired to be willing to devote a great deal of physical and intellectual energy to finding food. Rather than simply handing a bowl of food to high energy dogs, the routine of eating can be made into more of a challenge by putting the dog’s food inside of Kongs or other food puzzles, forcing the dogs to think in order to eat.

One of the Best Friends trainers recommended a cheap food puzzle solution for shelter dogs that’s darn-near indestructible – so we went out and bought the supplies for the LCHS dogs: PC pipe and end caps from Home Depot (end caps are about $1 each, the pipe was about $6 for a huge length), and Megan’s handy dad is going to drill small holes for treats/kibble to fall through. We’ll post instructions and photos when they’re completed.

At home, the easiest and cheapest enrichment exercise could be hiding some treats inside a cardboard box, and letting your dog sniff them out – you can even let him destroy the box.

2. Scent

Particularly with shelter dogs, it can get boring and routine when the dogs are always smelling the same things, day in day out. It’s mentally stimulating for dogs to smell new scents and use their noses – it’s part of being a dog. There are ways to mix it up and introduce new scents without having to drive the dogs five miles away from the shelter. And for people with active dogs and little time, these are also things you can easily do at your home to keep your dog captivated by their environment.

Scent-filled spray bottles – you can use cooking extracts such as peppermint, vanilla and coconut, and spray the scents around the kennel (or your house). Dogs have a very keen sense of smell, so you only need to put a small amount of the extract and fill the rest of the spray bottle with water. Alternating the scents each day will add some variety to the dog’s routine and help to keep their environment enriching. Just make sure to research the scents before you spray – some aromatherapy scents can be toxic to dogs, so try and stick with natural essences.

Potting soil – Sprinkling potting soil through a dog’s typical exercise area will add a number of interesting scents for the dog and will keep them mentally stimulated as they check out their ‘new’ surroundings.

3. Music as therapy

You’ve probably heard that playing classical music is calming for animals, and there have been several studies completed showing that playing classical music to animals helps to reduce common stressful behaviours like pacing and circling. Music can be therapy to anxious shelter animals, so some Beethoven every now and then can help to provide a more calming environment . Just remember that animals have much better hearing than we do, so the volume should be kept relatively low.

4. Training fun

Short training sessions are very intellectually stimulating for dogs, and provide a great benefit to both the animal and to the owner or potential adopters. There are tons of fun obedience exercises you can try out with high energy dogs – agility, flyball, doggy dancing, disc dogging, luring, and many more. All of these should be done in short, gentle and kind sessions so as not to frustrate or stress the dog. You can also just try and teach your dog a new trick, or enroll in a basic obedience class at your local training centre.

Most people are familiar with Cesar Milan’s suggestion of using a dog backpack on a walk, which is another great enrichment training exercise that gives the dog a sense of duty and will provide much more fulfillment from their daily stroll.

Additional resources on enrichment training:

Environment enrichment for dogs – Fact Sheet

Food Puzzles – FAQ

Mackenzie Animal Sanctuary’s brilliant ‘enrichment yard’ program

ASPCA’s Enrichment Suggestions for dogs, cats and horses

– Post by Kristen

Training: Shy Dog Class

Another really cool thing about being able to volunteer at Best Friends is the opportunity to attend several different training sessions. During this visit, we got to attend the shy dog class, which is for wallflower type dogs, who are shy with other dogs as well as with people.

Two shy dogs looking for treats

The premise of this class is really simple: volunteers or staff bring a shy dog to Tara’s Run, which is a large space used for numerous classes, drop the leash, and as dogs come up to different people in the room, they are given a treat. The idea is basically to teach the dogs that they have nothing to fear when it comes to strangers and get them to meet as many new people as possible. The dogs attend the classes for four months, then periodically throughout their time at Best Friends. The classes are held several different days per week, and have been quite successful so far.

Bobby is a super shy dog that gets much braver when treats are around

I took a beagle mix named Grandpa Joe (or Pappy for short), who has some issues being touched by people, and Kristen had Bobbie, a super skittish dog who is quite fearful of…everything, basically. Grandpa Joe did fairly well in the class, but Bobbie spent a lot of it hidden in the back room, although she did come out for the occasional treat.

Continued training and socialization will always be needed of course, but these classes go a long way in helping these dogs develop the essential skills they need to get them ready for a forever home.

-Post by Megan