UPDATE MAY 2020. THE ANIMAL SHELTER SOCIETY IS NO LONGER PROVIDING DECLAWING.
(Screenshot of an excerpt from the January 2020 story in the Zanesville Times Recorder.)
We want to acknowledge that the Animal Shelter Society in Zanesville, Ohio does a lot of good work to help find homes for rescued animals.
Unfortunately they also perform declawing at the Animal Shelter Society.
They are an Adoption Partner at the Zanesville Petsmart, so please sign our petition to Petsmart and hopefully they can inspire the Animal Shelter Society to put the welfare of cats FIRST and stop performing this inhumane and mutilating amputation procedure. Here’s our petition to Petsmart. Petsmart Petition
An animal shelter/rescue should be an organization that promotes the humane treatment of animals through education, advocacy and services.
Declawing is a mutilating and inhumane amputation procedure that ALWAYS harms the long term health and well-being of a cat.
Shelters and rescues should never condone or perform declawing and should EDUCATE the public about the facts about how it is always bad for cats. They should teach the adopters and the public about the easy, humane options like sturdy scratchers, scratching posts, deterrents, nail trims, Soft Paws, etc.
Here’s our declawing facts vs myths section with the easy, humane option links at the end. Declawing Facts vs Myths
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The Animal Shelter Society in Zanesville, Ohio is 1 of 3 shelters in America that declaws their adoptable cats if people ask for it and they also declaw cats for the public.
(The other two declawing shelters are Houston Humane Society and The Anna Shelter in Erie, PA.)
On May 8, 2020 we sent an email to Rebecca Hunt, the Shelter Care Manager and vet tech, to ask her if she’s seen the latest studies that show how bad declawing is for cats and we never heard back from her.
An employee at this shelter said that their two declawing veterinarians are Dr Rae Gandolf and Dr Andrew Sattler. We also reached out to them and never heard back.
We looked into how this shelter addresses declawing by having our researchers call and ask for a price of a declaw and a few other questions. Their employees said that they only do declawing with spay/neuter procedures. An employee said that declawing is a simple procedure that doesn’t hurt the cat and the cats don’t even know it was done to them.
Their employee also said the cats completely heal up in 24-48 hrs. When our researcher said that they read on the internet that declawing was bad for cats, the employee said to never believe what you read on the internet and to always ask them.
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Our Exec. Director also called them to ask if they are going to get back with us with the answers to the questions for this story and the receptionist said that all they can do is give the message to their vets and Shelter Care Manager.
The receptionist was asked if they perform declawing and she said yes, “we do it if the people ask for it.”
She was asked if they educate the public about declawing and/or the humane options when someone calls for a declaw or do they just schedule the procedure. She said that they don’t educate people about it and they just schedule it. She said that the vet department takes it from there.
She said that they send out flyers and pamphlets with each of their adopters but didn’t know if they had anything about declawing in them.
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We found out about this shelter after a supporter sent us this Zanesville Times Recorder, January 2020 story, where it says they offer front paw declawing. “The shelter provides vaccinations, heart worm and parvo testing, flea and tick prevention, nail trim, microchip and front paw declawing. ” Animal Shelter Society story
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Here is our FACTS vs MYTHS section with the humane options at the end of it. DECLAWING FACTS VS MYTHS
Please always remember to take the high road and educate!
Here are the questions that we sent their Shelter Care Manager and declawing vets.
1) Have you , your staff, and your veterinarians who perform the declaws read the latest studies that show how bad declawing is for a cat?
2) If you have, do you educate people who ask for a declaw about these negative consequences of a declaw?
3) Do your vets and staff educate adopters about the easy, humane options like sturdy scratching posts, nail trims, scratching pads, deterrents, etc or do they just acquiesce and perform a declaw when the adopter or client asks for it?
4) Do your vets ever perform botched declaw repair surgeries on cats and if so, how many a year do they do?
5) Who sets your policies for declawing at your shelter?
6) What do you do when you declawed cat returned for peeing out of the litter box? Do you euthanize them?
7) How do your vets perform the declaws? Scalpel, laser, or guillotine clipper?