THE QUESTION: San Francisco is getting ready to ban the declawing of cats as inhumane. I've always declawed my cats and thought of it as a minor tradeoff to convert an outdoor animal to an indoor pet. It's also easier on the furniture. Have I been inhumane? And if so, is there an alternative, perhaps some sort of middle ground?

Dr. Neil Tenzer

THE EXPERT: Dr. Neil Tenzer is the founder and director of Sky Lake Animal Hospital, 2645 NE 186th St., Miami. In March, he marked the 40th anniversary of the practice that works with the motto “The best of care with love.” He has been a member of the Board of Governors of the Greater Miami Humane Society and has received the Gold Star from the Florida Veterinary Medical Association. He is one of the innovators of emergency care for animals and cares for Miami-Dade Metro Police dogs, Fire Rescue dogs and TSA’s bomb-sniffing dogs at Miami International Airport.

THE ANSWER: I have my personal opinion on these issues, discuss them freely with my clients and now “go on record” in this forum.

No, I do not feel declawing is an inhumane procedure.

For many pet owners, it provides that last option to keep the cat in the home. Some cats take to scratching posts; some don't. But few pet owners can live with ripped and tattered furniture.

The option to declaw, if eliminated by a legislative ban, will, I believe, result in wholesale abandonment of these cats by frustrated owners tossing them outside or taking them to a shelter for euthanasia. Additionally we’ll see a dramatic decrease in cat adoptions by a public aware that the surgical option is no longer available to them.

Declaw then becomes a far lesser "evil" and allows the cat to be maintained in a NOW loving, happy home!!

The procedure itself, in experienced hands, is very safe and has very few complications. Further, with today’s sophisticated multimodal pain techniques that combine different classes of pain medication to allow enhanced effects at lower doses of each drug, we can make our little patients comfortable during the healing process. These are easily administered, by the owner at home for at least 10 days following hospital discharge.

The surgery is a small tradeoff for both pet and owner for a lifetime loving home for kitty and the incomparable love and companionship cats bring to our lives.

Scratching posts as mentioned earlier are sometime effective and always recommended initially. There are commercial plastic nail caps available, however, in my experience, they are not very useful because of the difficulty and frequency of application. They are applied monthly or more often as they have a tendency to fall off. Further, I would think they'd be VERY uncomfortable for a cat to live with its entire life.

On a personal note, I have five cats, three of whom I declawed to prevent further damage to our furniture; The two other cats used the scratching post and did not require surgery. The three cats that I declawed 12 years ago, after the initial healing period of about two weeks, have never had an issue with their paws psychologically or physically. In fact a recently published study indicated that there were no long-term psychological ramifications following the declaw procedure.

Some last important points: First, we recommend only a front paw declaw unless there are unusual special circumstances that would require a four-paw declaw. Second, never ever allow a declawed cat free to roam outside. Third, never ever allow any household kitty free to roam outside. It is most certainly not cruel to keep them as exclusive indoor cats, because it is a far too dangerous world for them out there (cars, fights, infectious disease, poison).

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