Chart is based on data from shelters in the cities where declawing was banned.
March 8, 2020.
The pro-declaw folks, who don’t want declawing banned, often say that less cats will be adopted and more cats will be in shelters and euthanized.
Here’s one of the MANY examples that debunks this antiquated myth and lie.
The shelter director of the Humane Society of Midland County in Midland, Michigan, Beth Wellman, gave us their position on declawing and why they support the Michigan anti-declawing legislation.
Here’s what she sent to us.
“We haven’t allowed cats to be declawed that are adopted from our shelter for several years now.
We have a 99% placement rate.
Over 95% of adopters that indicate an intent to declaw when presented in an educational way what declawing entails are horrified and agree to not declaw the cat, at that point we will go forward with the adoption.
If they are insistent on declawing or not seeming to listen to the information, we allow them to adopt an already declawed cat as we almost always have declawed cats in need of homes but not one with claws.
It is a rarity that we run into those people.
We are an open intake facility accepting over 1200 cats annually, we get declawed cats surrendered for biting, house soiling, etc.
We firmly believe that declawing legislation will have no negative effect or increase the cat issues in our area.
Declawing doesn’t currently keep them in their homes anyway so removing the option isn’t going to change a thing!”
I believe that veterinarians do not see as many of the issues with declawing as open intake animal shelters see.
If someone is having an issue with their declawed cat, they may go to the vet once for advice, maybe get checked for a UTI, use some Feliway diffusers or something but if the behavior/issue doesn’t change they get rid of the cat.
After all, if they declawed the cat to save their furniture, they aren’t going to invest much money in their cat if it is destroying their carpet, biting their kids, or avoiding interaction at all because the arthritis is so bad in their feet and the cat doesn’t know why it hurts just that it does so it lashes out. Not to be evil but to communicate a problem.
I see this every single day, people who surrender and “yes we went to the vet and we think it’s the new baby, or they want more attention, or the kids are too rowdy” whatever. However the vet has no clue that their suggestions did not work, they did not go back, the cat is at a shelter.
Combine that with human nature to not want to admit that they have been causing tremendous life long pain to the animals that they promised to help is too much to take.
They aren’t seeing the issues and they don’t believe there is a correlation.
Animal Shelters/Humane Societies are where people “dump” their pets with issues.
Pets without any issues get dropped off as well, not to imply that shelters are filled with just animals with behavioral issues, but if they have a problem many people just get rid of them instead of trying to work out the issue.
I don’t believe veterinarians see as many behavioral/pain issues associated with declawing as shelters do.”
