The Painful Truth About Declawing
To put these all this in perspective, there are, more or less, 80 million pet cats in the U.S. At least 20% are declawed (estimates range from 20-45%), which is 16,000,000 cats. If even only 5% have long-term painful complications (and the number is likely far higher), that’s still 800,000 cats with known chronic pain, obvious pain.
How many is too many to suffer?
Clearly, veterinarians as a profession have failed to keep up with modern medicine, failed to govern themselves, and failed to understand the universal, serious, and potentially lifetime pain they are causing cats by declawing. Sadly, there is no mechanism to enforce changes in the profession.
Therefore, legislation is necessary to stop the cruel and unnecessary practice of declawing.