Nearly 75 Years After The AVMA Helped Popularize Declawing, Two Vets Connected to Declawing Clinics Rise to AVMA’s Top Leadership
On July 11, 2026, at the AVMA convention in Anaheim, CA. the AVMA House of Delegates (HOD) unanimously elected Dr. Robert Knapp as its 2026-27 president-elect and Dr. Elizabeth Boggier as its vice president.
“Yes, they do them all the time, yes.”
That was the response in September 2025 from an employee at Knapp Veterinary Hospital in Columbus, OH, the vet clinic owned by newly elected AVMA President-Elect Dr. Robert Knapp, when asked whether the clinic’s veterinarians perform cat declawing often.
One employee said all their veterinarians—including Dr. Robert Knapp—perform laser declaws, adding they are done “Monday through Friday.” Another employee said that all four of their doctors can do a declaw/spay and it just depends on what day of the week it is.
MVMA Used Misleading Testimony to Influence 7 GOP Legislators Who Stopped Minnesota’s Declawing Bill
7 GOP Legislators are Duped by MVMA.org’s Declawing Deception And Kill The MN Anti-Declaw Bill, Ensuring Many Innocent and Healthy Cats in Minnesota Will Be Barbarically Mutilated and Suffer for Life. In 2025, MVMA spokesman Dr Trevor Ames assured lawmakers that “very few veterinary practices offer elective declawing as a service currently.” In 2026, MVMA’s spokesman, Dr Rob Memmem, co-owner of Gehrman Animal Hospital, reinforced that narrative in a March 2026 hearing, telling legislators there had been “a huge increase in the number of our veterinarians no longer performing the procedure over the last 15 or so years,” that “currently about 30%” still offer declawing while “70% are not,” and that the profession had “appropriately regulated itself moving away from this procedure.” He further claimed “a decreasing number of veterinary clinics are offering to perform this procedure entirely.” Our survey found that 61% of vet clinics in MN are still performing declawing.
Does Subaru Love ALL Pets or Just Dogs: $41M to ASPCA & Stays Silent On Cat Declawing Cruelty
“If Subaru insists on looking the other way while enabling this cruelty, it should stop pretending,” City the Kitty said. “Call it what it is: *‘Subaru Loves Dogs.’* Because clearly, Subaru has shown it does not love cats.”
Why is Kelley’s Heart to Heart Adoption Center in MI Declawing Most of Their Rescued Cats Before They Put them Up For Adoption?
Dr James Kelley, the owner and declawing vet from Kelley’s Animal Clinic in Walker, MI sent a note to all the shelter directors in Michigan in Feb. 2020 about how he opposed the anti-declawing bill. Some of the things he said in the note were, “Declawing your cat is not a cruel choice, there are no ill side effects, and the cats are not aware of the fact that they have been declawed.”
Dr James Kelley also runs a cat adoption organization called Kelley’s Heart to Heart Adoption Center in Walker, MI and most of their rescued kittens are declawed before they put them up for adoption.
A Declawing Survey of 156 AAFP CAT FRIENDLY Practices
2018 City the Kitty’s American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) CAT FRIENDLY Practice Declawing Study
Of the 156 Cat Friendly Practices in this study in Alabama, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Texas, 133 perform declaws and 23 don’t.
85% of the 156 Cat Friendly Practices in my study declaw cats.