Back in the 1960s, more people were deciding to keep their cats fully indoors to protect them from cars, predators, disease and bad people and to block home delivery of gifts of rodents and birds. It was also good news for the rodent and bird populations. According to an article by veterinary surgeon Dr. Karyn Kanowski, it wasn’t good news for the upholstery and carpeting.
So, sometime in the 1960s, veterinarians started offering onychectomy procedures, commonly called declawing, as an optional addition to spay/neuter surgery. I’m embarrassed to admit that I did have one of my cats declawed back in 1981, before I knew what I’m about to describe. Ezzi hopped around the house like a kangaroo for days — luckily, she didn’t suffer any other effects, and I swore I’d never do it again.
In her article, Kanowski referred to declawing as a “rather grotesque solution to a human problem.”…