Even if you do not consider the act of declawing barbaric, surely the motivation for passing such a law is that the lawmakers felt like many on this forum, that the act of declawing is an act of cruelty. That being the case, the law is an act of conscious so how can anyone criticize a single act of a nation voting it’s conscious?

Your statement also reveals your partiality to animal suffering or a notion that doing good is a zero-sum game. As if a government can only focus on one task at a time and must ignore all others. So silly to assume if a nation takes action to protect it’s furry friends that they can do nothing else as a result of this action. Like there is one lawmaker confused by all the other issues and everything else is put on hold because he’s considering an animal cruelty law.

To me it has always been fascinating how a person’s true character can be determined by how they treat animals. Especially animals who are not their own. I won’t date a girl if she’s not crazy about animals :)

@ Jane – I loved the Gandi quote.

Many think it’s not possible to train cats to not scratch. I have trained my cats to shake hands, fetch, speak, to sit silently when hungry (no begging), and I’m working on using a toilet. Cats are trainable, we must just approach them on their terms.

Hurray Israel! Way to lead by example in the area of animal cruelty.

Many of the Vets here in the US are $$$ hungry and unfortuanately will not hesitate to declaw.
There are so many alternatives. I just trim my cat’s nails, or have my Veterinarian do it. Also my cats use scratching posts with sissal and slanted corrragated cardboard ramps made especiallly for cats. Show them how and reward with treats. Put a little catnip on the areas to be scratched.

The humane alternatives are endless so kitties will not have to be chopped..and later suffer with personality issues, biting, refusing to use the litter box, balance problems and dozens of other problems relating to having been amputated, including after sometimes so much pain and bleeding with their paws bandaged. Sometimes the nails grow back inside the skin and your cat has no way of telling you about the pain. Google on line>>..declawing cruel dangers pictures.
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Hopefully our country will wake up some day and follow what others are doing by making it illegal to do this to cats.

If an ignorant apartment complex management has rules to de-claw cats, contact the Humane Society Of The US..and they should help you with information..or rebel, bring literature to show management/corporate or do not move there.

Brad, you are clueless!
Alice, what is your website.

Here’s to the lucky Kitties in Israel!

There is always a solution, declawing is never one of them. Cats come with claws and baby boys come with their entire foreskin.

Earl: whoever told you this lied to you. all declawing is done by taking off the first knuckle of the cats paw otherwise you risk having the nails regrow in such a way that can injure the cat.

Brad you’re an idiot! circumcision and declawing are two very different procedures with two very different reasons for doing them.
circumcision is done as a religious act (as stupid of a reason as that is) and has been proved to actually be beneficial for men health.
declawing is done so that people could protect their couch.
also the part that is taken in the circumcision is a piece of skin, that in all honesty a man can live without and suffer no consequence, while a cat needs its claws and toes to protect itself.

But isn’t is ironic, that it’s been made illegal to cut off part of a cat, yet it’s still legal to cut off part of a boy’s penis?

Maybe they’ll give boys equal protection they give to animals and pass a law that bans circumcision, I mean genital mutilation.

The other way (that my wife does), preserves all of the pad, all of the bone, and just removes the nail bed. Before stitching them up, they get a small pain-killer time release medication put in each toe.

As long as the cats are given paper-pulp “litter” to go in for a couple days after, there’s almost ZERO chance of infection.

Instead of condemning everything to do with declawing, do some research first.

The cats scratch up plenty of stuff outside. They also keep the rodent population in check, which is something the dog would never do, and they wouldn’t, either, if they had no claws.

Training is the key, not some cop-out operation to hobble the animal. Get a kennel, for cryin’ out loud. If your cat is tearing stuff up when you are away, kennel it. You can get a large dog kennel and fix it up with a small litter area, a food area and a resting area. It is not cruel, especially if you provide those basics. Let the cat out when you can supervise, kennel when you can’t. Kennel the cat if it claws anything it shouldn’t. After a few weeks of that, the cat will know what it needs to know.

Declawing should be so rare that it makes headlines when necessary.

My three cats are indoor kitties only, because I think it’s more irresponsible, risky, and highly dangerous to allow a cat to roam than to have it declawed.

The last indoor/outdoor cat I had (he died in ’96 at 15 years old) had all claws for defense purposes, and despite employing all those “other” means of protecting one’s belongings or skin from a cat’s front claws, he shredded couches, chairs, and drapes. I waited until he passed to replace my furniture.

Since then, I have had my cats’ front paws declawed. Their back claws are intact in the unlikely (as in, it’s never happened) event they escape the house. They have NEVER suffered from a changed gait, behavior problems, or medical complications.

I think it’s primarily about finding a vet who can actually perform such procedures in the most non-invasive way possible. I also think it must be done when cats are very young, not on older cats.

I also agree with Drizzling that Israel has more pressing things to deal with–this was just politically easy. But for those of you who think that this issue deserved such attention, do you also think that a $20,000 fine and a year in jail is WAY out of whack for the “crime”? And, if you don’t, REALLY?

This law will simply result in more homeless cats. I guess the smug among you can shrug and call that collateral damage.

I’m just shaking my head at this.

Actually, the choice was “which one of the dozen or more humane alternatives to declawing to use.” All non-medical reasons for declawing have non-surgical solutions. But wait, all those solutions take a little bit of time and effort. It’s quicker and easier for Mother to have 1/3 of Sally’s paws amputated instead!

Evidently, 9-year old Wilma has *many*more problems than a scratched cheek, if she is too helpless to train (or move) the cat, and if Wilma and her parents are too incompetent to trim Sally’s claws or use Soft Paws–and unable to take the cat to the vet or groomer to have that done if they are so inept. Apparently, in Sally’s lifetime, Wilma will never grow up, go away to college, or learn to work WITH a cat’s natural behavior.

Yet poor Sally will have chronically painful paws, a permanently altered gait, and arthritis in her paws, legs and spine, even when Wilma is grown and gone. Of course, when Sally starts biting, or urinating on the furniture (months or years later), Mother’s response will be to get rid of the cat–because she sees the only alternative to the first tiny little problem as “abandonment.” In my career as a feline veterinarian, I’ve seen it too many times to have any doubt about that outcome.

What kind of lesson is that to teach a child?

For the person who suggested that for a cat to be -declawed the owner should also be de-clawed, you go first. Should the owner get a vasectomy too if the cat is neutered?

Oh, and… just as the article points out, this cat is the only serious biter we have ever had. We have taught her not to bite… and she has learned she has nothing to fear from us… but when you declaw a cat, biting is the only defense they have left.

In fact, cats are often surrendered to shelters following the surgery which was performed to preserve the cat’s home, since cats often resort to inappropriate elimination, biting and aggressive behavior.

Sadly-the majority of veterinarians I have encountered do not adequately educate the client about how the surgery is performed or the risk to cats during and following surgery. If a piece of furniture is more valuable than a living, breathing kitty’s welfare, my opinion is for people not to get a cat.

I am just thrilled by Israel’s humane and forward thinking action and I salute them highly.

Sally liked to purr in Wilma’s ear and pat her cheek to greet her each morning.

But, Sally did not retract her claws, so Wilma’s Mother had Sally declawed to end the cheek scratches.

Declawing, or abandoning Sally. The choice was simple.

I have had, on a Vet’s recommendation, had another cat’s dew claws removed because it was turned inward and the Vet thought it would cause issues later.

Even with a declawed cat, I still have a scratching post that my cat tries to use next to my desk, she still seems to enjoy trying to scratch.