AAHA’s Ethical Collapse: Knows Declawing Is Wrong but Delays Ban for Member Support, Prioritizing Profits
LAKEWOOD, Colo. (Sept. 29, 2025) — The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), claims to be the gold standard in veterinary excellence, is under fire for refusing to ban the cruel and outdated practice of cat declawing—unless its member hospitals and veterinarians, many of which still perform and profit from the procedure, support the ban. […]
AAHA Is Slowly Coming Around: No-Declaw Hospital Wins Top Honor. Now It’s Time to Ban Declawing in 2025!
On August 12, 2025, AAHA announced their 4 finalists for AAHA’s 2025 Practice of the Year.
3 of them declaw cats. One of them even advertises their laser declawing on their website and minimizes the long term suffering and risks to the cat’s health and well being. https://www.bluespringsanimalhospital.com/hospital/surgery
What Every AAHA Con 2025 Attendee Should Know & Why AAHA’s Idea of Excellence Includes Cat Cruelty
More than 4,500 practices representing 50,000 veterinary team members pay thousands of dollars to the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA.org), a company that allows a barbaric, antiquated, and inhumane amputation procedure (declawing) so they can be branded as hospitals that deliver quality medicine, embody the “gold standard” of excellence, and raise the bar for the veterinary profession.
This deceives pet owners into believing accreditation guarantees excellence.
‘Monumental Moment’ or Hollow Hype? AAHA Fails to Ban Declawing, Trails Behind Industry Leaders
LAKEWOOD, Colo., July 25, 2025 — The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) introduced “groundbreaking new Standards of Accreditation” calling them a “historic milestone” in elevating veterinary care in their press release. Yet, AAHA’s new standards merely “discourages” nontherapeutic declawing, ear cropping, and devocalization, allowing their accredited hospitals to continue these practices without penalty. AAHA’s Director […]
No Mercy for Cats: AAHA’s Failure to Stop Allowing Declawing Shows Money Matters More Than Cat Welfare
Cat mutilation and torture masquerading as the best in veterinary medicine: Many of AAHA’s Standard of Excellence Accredited Animal Hospitals declaw cats. AAHA allows their accredited animal hospitals to declaw cats for profit, advertise their declawing services, and lie about it to their clients and to the public. They also allow their veterinarians to submit […]
AAHA’s Declaw Communications Toolkit To Help Their Declawing Hospitals
Remember, declawing is a $900,000 – $1,200,000,000/year business. That’s a lot of clams.
So here’s the hypocrisy in a nutshell.
AAHA has strict guidelines for compliance.
AAHA has a strong anti-declaw position.
Get ready for the big BUT…
But, they openly tell their 3500 members who pay $1070 for membership, that they don’t have to follow the AAHA declaw position. (They aren’t however, ever lax on the dentals.)
It’s 2025. Why is AAHA.org Still Allowing Declawing In Their Accredited Animal Hospitals?
UPDATED FEB. 2025. Story published on April 30, 2024. Why is AAHA.org still putting profits over the welfare of cats by allowing declawing in their hospitals? Please sign our petition to AAHA.org. We are almost at 50,000 signatures. AAHA Petition Are the leaders of AAHA.org confused? If you know any of them, please ask them […]
AAHA.org had 4 Finalists for Their 2023 Practice of the Year. 3 Of Them Don’t Declaw Cats. AAHA Chose The Declawing Clinic As The Winner.
Story published on Dec.7, 2023. AAHA.org, the American Animal Hospital Association has a yearly contest to pick their AAHA Accredited Animal Hospital of the Year. This year AAHA had 4 choices for their hospital of the year. Three of the AAHA hospitals do not perform declawing and one of them does, according to employees who […]
Marshfield Veterinarians Have Done The Right Thing And Stopped Declawing. Now the City Council Wants to Follow Their Lead.
Story published on August 14, 2023. Declawing is still a BIG business in Wisconsin in many veterinary clinics but not in Marshfield. The veterinarians in Marshfield did the right thing and stopped performing declawing. Unfortunately many vet clinics in the surrounding towns and in Wisconsin are still making easy and good money from this animal […]
Will AAHA’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Jessica Vogelsang, Be Able To Inspire AAHA to Ban Declawing in their hospitals?
In 2021 AAHA.org hired a new Chief Medical Officer, Dr Jessica Vogelsang.
AAHA says that they are strongly opposed to declawing, that veterinarians should tell their clients that it is a procedure that is no longer supported or reasonable yet they allow it in their AAHA Accredited Animal Hospitals. Many of them perform this inhumane amputation on a regular basis, they advertise declawing, put out declawing coupons, and lie about it and say that the cats are ok long term after they are declawed.
We are optimistic that Dr Vogelsang will be the progressive, ethical, and humane veterinary leader at AAHA who sees the value in doing the right thing, being on the right side of this issue and history, and will inspire AAHA to put the welfare of all animals first and ban declawing in their AAHA accredited animal hospitals.