Dr. Lera Clone explains declawing removes the last bone in a cat's toe, not just the nail, and carries risks like chronic pain and retained bone fragments. Alternatives include scratching posts of different textures, nail caps that last 2-6 weeks, and regular trimming.
Hey, guys. My name is Dr. Lehrer here at Heron Lakes Animal Hospital. Today I'm here with Maui. Maui's here for dun, dun, dun, a declaw consultation. And so declaws are a very, very touchy topic. And I'm going to let, if you guys notice, Maui wants to get off the table. I'm going to let Maui get off the table just so that way we don't keep her up here if we don't want to be here. So first things first, I want to talk about what a declaw actually is. A lot of people have the misconception that a d claw is when you remove the nail of the cat. The actual procedure is an amputation of this part of the finger right here. The finger is broken into three separate bones, 1, 2, and 3. And so what we do is the fancy term is we disarticulate the last bone from the two other bones. So, and when I say we, I mean veterinary medicine, which in a lot of states, it is illegal to perform this procedure. As of right now, I am not sure if it is legal to perform it in the state of Florida or not. There are different procedures that are done. If it is allowed in the state and the veterinarian chooses to perform it, it is up to the veterinarian's discretion whether or not they want to perform that procedure on your pet. If it is legal in that state, you cannot force them to do it. Number two, the different kinds of procedures, they can either go, one, get a scalpel blade and make incisions to remove the ligaments from the last digit or last phalange to the middle phalangen. They can use a laser. The laser does the same thing as the, as the scalpel blade. And what ends up happening is with the laser, you do not have to go ahead and put a tourniquet on their arm to go ahead and keep the bleeding. The laser will actually stop the bleeding and actually reduce. Causes the least amount of inflammation of the three potential procedures that are done. The last procedure is what's called a Roscoe clipper technique or guillotine technique. And so that is one where a lot of times they will go ahead and they will get a blade and they will cut through the different ligaments. If you have somebody who doesn't know what they're doing, especially with that Roscoe technique, there's a possibility that they may break certain parts of that bone and leave that bone in the the tissue, and then you'll end up having a lot of pain and discomfort and potentially having to have a follow up surgery, at least one, maybe several afterwards. Okay. Now, that being said, my recommendation is to not declaw your cat. Okay. If you are concerned that your cat is going to rip up furniture, which is usually the most common thing that I hear, you want to go ahead and you want to have several scratching posts throughout the house. You're going to want to have ones that are tall. You don't typically want to have ones that are little short ones that are a little like coke can or a bottle about this tall. You want them to be tall enough so that the cats can stretch their arms, grab up and really scratch. When they use those scratching wheels, typically what they do is they are grooming their nails. They'll chew on them as well. But it is another way for them to groom their nails. They do have some of the scratching posts that are corrugated cardboard and they might be either in a slant flat or in a wave pattern. That's another one. They have some that are made of rope. Okay. What you're going to want to do is you're going to want to find either the texture that your cat really likes or you're going to want to have a variety because maybe your cat wants different textures. So that's something to take into consideration. Something else that you can do to help them using your scratching post is a, if you're finding that they're scratching, put the scratching post next to where they're scratching. Second, if they take naps in places which obviously the phrase cat nap, what you'll want to do is you might want to set up a scratching texture surface or something like that close to where they nap. Because what will happen is they'll wake up and they'll go. Right Maui. And that is something that you want to go ahead and try and prevent. They do have some of those caps that you can put on the cat's nails. And that is something that lasts depending anywhere from two weeks to four to six weeks. You do have to glue them on. It's not painful for the cats and it is something that does require regular reapplication. Okay. The other thing is if you go ahead and keep their nails clipped short, that is something that's going to be, that's going to make it harder for them to go ahead and pierce your furniture and go ahead and cause damage. So those are some different things that you can do to go ahead and avoid them scratching your surfaces. If you are. If they're not using the scratching post, one of the other things you can use, you can put some catnip on there, and that'll be something that might help them in attracting them to your particular scratching surfaces. All right, if you guys have any questions or concerns about this particular topic, please leave it in the comment box. If you found this video helpful, please give us a thumbs up. And if you know somebody who's thinking about this, please share it with them. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
