Tag: declaw

Despite Founder’s Focus on Vet Team Mental Health, Associated Veterinary Partners Allows Declawing, a Practice Harmful to Both Cats and Vet Staff

If declawing is contributing to moral stress for even some veterinary team members within Associated Veterinary Partners, as City the Kitty’s survey could suggest, it represents a preventable source of ethical conflict that could be eliminated with a single company-wide policy.

For a leader who has urged the veterinary profession to confront the systemic causes of moral injury, the question remains unanswered: Why does Co-founder and COO, Dr Bill Wagner, of Associated Veterinary Partners continue to allow an inhumane amputation procedure that may be creating the very ethical conflict and harm to veterinary professionals that he has spent years warning about?

“The discomfort level is no more in a neuter than it is in a declaw that is done properly.”- NJVMA SpokesVet Dr Mike Yurkus

When cats start walking on their balls then we will start believing the NJVMA’s spokesvet Dr Yurkus and his animal hospital that declawing isn’t more painful than neutering.

Meanwhile, the American Association of Feline Practitioners’ policy on declawing states:

“Physically, regardless of the method used, onychectomy causes a higher level of pain than spays and neuters. Patients may experience both adaptive and maladaptive pain; in addition to inflammatory pain, there is the potential to develop long-term neuropathic or central pain if the pain is inadequately managed during the perioperative and healing periods.” [AAFP Policy Statement on Declawing, 2007.]

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.

AVMA’s Credibility in Crisis: Leaders With Financial Ties to Declawing Shape Policy, Prompting Calls to Rename It the “American Veterinary Money Association”

Story published on October 21, 2025.  (Petition to the AVMA. AVMA Petition Update January 2026.   In a sharp January 2026 Letter to the Editor in the Journal of Small Animal Practice, experts from the World Small Animal Veterinary Association Pain Committee condemn the American Veterinary Medical Association’s (AVMA) House of Delegates for refusing to […]

How Dr Andy Roark Played The Victim Instead of Helping The Welfare of Cats.

In one sentence he said he was, “impressed by my passion and dedication”, and that I’m someone who is working hard to help pets and do good in the world. He said that he hopes I see similar characteristics in him.
And in the next sentence he said he didn’t feel inspired but he felt attacked.
Hmmmm. How did I attack him?
I simply asked some questions in a private email as to why so many employees at his practice that is a AAHA, AAFP Cat Friendly hospital were saying that they are a high volume declawing practice and that cat owners could book a declaw surgery with him personally.

How The CVMA and the California VMB Stopped The Anti-declawing Bills

Multiple animal medical and welfare organizations have issued statements against declawing, including the American Association of Feline Practitioners, the American Animal Hospital Association, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, and the World Small Animal Veterinary Association. Fourteen jurisdictions have seen fit to ban the procedure. Even a major veterinary hospital chain, VCA, stopped declawing a year ago throughout Canada.
Now it is time for California to pass this important legislation and join the worldwide humane movement against declawing.