L.A. City Council committee asks for ordinance banning cat declawing

The Los Angeles City Council's Public Safety Committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend that City Atty. Carmen Trutanich draft an ordinance banning cat declawing within city limits. 

The proposal was put forth by Councilmen Bill Rosendahl and Paul Koretz, who said the procedure caused "unnecessary pain, anguish and permanent disability" to cats, according to the report from the L.A. Times' David Zahniser. 

The California Veterinary Medical Assn. is opposed to local cat declawing bans and says they could lead to increases in owners relinquishing, abandoning and euthanizing their cats.

Read Zahniser's post on the L.A. Now blog, and check back at L.A. Unleashed for more updates on the issue.

-- Anne Colby

Photo: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Amelia Johnson]

As much as I am opposed to declawing cats and agree with the concerns expressed by Councilmen Bill Rosendahl and Paul Koretz, the veterinarians are correct in knowing that owners that are less tolerant of property destruction will either give the cats away, turn them out or euthanize them.

Perhaps a better approach would be to educate owners on how to trim cat claws and provide the cats with scratching posts and platforms.

Living in the moment,

animal lover Amelia

[Tyler]

So I assume the cities are going to take on liability for damages done to my property when my neighbors future cats that cant be declawed start tearing things up? Window screens, the upholstry on my boat, the tonneau cover on my truck, to name a few. I know my neighbor cant afford to pay for the damages.

1. The pain is not unnessesary for the cat. Its done at a young age, and the cats dont show any memory of it later in life.

2. Since the cats are being completley cared for by humans, they do not need their front claws for catching prey.

3. There is no visible difference between a cat with claws and a declawed cat, hence it does not disfigure them in any way.

4. The only claws a cat needs are its rear claws, as they offer traction for jumping, and are used to scratch when they have an itch.

If you want to ban de-clawing cats, you need to be semi-intelligent about it and ban the de-clawing of the rear paws only. People do NOT need their houses and property destroyed by a city ordinance. NOR should I have to waste ammo in the process of shooting my neighbors cat for attempting to destroy my belongings.

[Declawer]

They should outlaw circumcision as well. I mean that brings about pain. Let's just get rid of anything that brings about pain.

[Michele S.]

I for one am delighted that L.A. City Council voted in favour of a ban on declawing. Why should cats suffer an unnecessary amputation for owner convenience? It's no secret that cats are born with claws and it's not compulsory to have one as a pet.

Vets here in Europe refused to perform the surgery even before it was made illegal. Instead they and animal shelters educate the public on humane ways to teach cats claw manners. We also have babies, young children, people with compromised immune systems and nice furnishings, yet we are able to live happily alongside our cats with claws.

I don't believe that declawing saves lives either. Anyone who lacks the patience or kindess to teach a cat claw manners, is certainly not going to tolerate litter box avoidance or biting, which are the two main side effects of declawing cats. Incidentally, house-soiling is the number one reason cats in Europe are surrendered to shelters. Unwanted scrathing is at the bottom of the list of reasons for giving up a cat.

[Susan]

BRAVO L.A. Public Safety Comm for proposing this ban! Declawed cats are a public safety risk, they have crippled fingers without bones & severed tendons, which causes them to be unpredictable, stressed out, cause urine damage, & use their teeth more. The notion that they are better to have around the elderly, infants, and sick is absurd & untrue since cat bites are far more serious & infectious than scratches. It's time we weed out those that don't want pets who act like animals & don't have the time to care for their natural behaviors (it takes 20 seconds to trim nails) as cat guardians. Laws need to be made to restrict the greedy veterinarian community from pandering this mutilation surgery & unfit people from having cats. Education isn't working. "Last resort" has turned into a field day for vets. I hope that every council member votes to BAN this needless mutilation on Friday. It's time to stop crippling cats for convenience & profit. Our country is better than that.

[Tragic_Lesson_Learned]

The procedure is traumatic, can change the animal's disposition permanently and lead to bad behaviors that increase the chance of abandonment. I was ignorant of what "declawing" really meant (amputation) until after I got my new kitten back from the vet. She was never the same. In the years that followed, she grew into an adult cat with stress-aggravated cystitis that made it nearly impossible for her to pee. She was a stressed animal from that day forward. Soon, she began biting (without front claws to communicate warnings). By the age of six, she was peeing mostly blood when she could pee at all. She was usually unable to urinate and totally disinterested in play or even looking out the window. I eventually decided to put an end to her nightmare and put her down. I am solely to blame for this tragic story. Make no mistake; this is a painful procedure akin to chopping off your own finger at the first knuckle with a pair of circular scissors. And kitty doesn't get Vicoden when she wakes up a few hours later. She just thrashes herself against the walls of the vet's cage and whelps and cries. Some cats will be unaffected by the operation and go on to live happy lives. Others, like mine, will experience a heartbreaking loss in quality of life. The ban is a good thing. I hope they name it something cute like Fluffy's Law.

[Barbara]

Will you people listen to yourselves? You are coldly and misguidedly stating that it doesn't matter that cats suffer tremendous pain after ten seperate amputations of their toe ends, that cats don't need their claws and even worse that there is no visible difference between clawed and unclawed cats. I can assure you that beneath those furry mittens that cats wear there is a world of difference, the toes end at the second knuckle and there are stumps where the toe ends complete with claws should be. The fact that you cannot see because of the fur on the paws shields you from the truth, but not the cat who lives with deformity for the rest of it's life.
To compare declawing with circumcision is plain silly, such a procedure on adults is elective, and on children is decided my the parents and the patient knows what is happening, this is vastly different to a cat being hauled off to the vet surgery for the removal of it's toes. Physical and mental shock follows the loss of toes, how could it not? Can you imagine having your finger ends removed, pain relief being an optional, chargeable extra and someone declaring that your pain is not unnecessary? No,you'd probably take to your beds for a week and spend the rest of your lives on disability payouts.
I am delighted that finally compassion is seeping in, it's time you lot realised that America is amongst the few countries that still consider declawing to be acceptable. the rest of us - in 38 countries - KNOW it is inhumane and unnecessary. We have furniture in England where I live, we have boats, drapes, kids, old folks and dogs and we value them all. But the difference between you people and the rest of the world is that we value cats too, complete with claws. Step into the 21st century folks declawing has had it's day and will pass away!

[Ruth]

Most vets don't follow the AVMA policy that declawing should be a last resort for serious scratching behaviour. Nor do they explain to clients that declawing is the painful amputation of 10 healthy toe ends and can lead to behavioural problems.
Therefore the only way to stop this cruel uneccessary mutilation is by a ban.
We in the UK where it is illegal to declaw cats but where even before it was banned our vets would not do it anyway, are watching with great interest,the way the cities are voting.

[Sandra]

I'm thrilled to see that they are moving to ban declawing. I'm willing to entertain the notion that cats are saved by declawing, but I would like to see an empirical study that proves that. You see abandoned declawed cats at the shelters fairly frequently, so I'm not convinced that people who declaw their cats are less likely to abandon them because the cats are less destructive. In addition, it's a little extreme to assume that people who declaw cats will automatically abandon or destroy their cat. You can't assume that just because people won't be able to declaw, they'll automatically abandon. That's quite a leap - there's no evidence that a significant proportion of people will not take a middle road and use soft paws or trimming the claws with a nail trimmer or find other methods to cope with a cats' having claws.

The fact that it is taken seriously and denounced as an inhumane practice by local governments will serve to educate people about how inhumane declawing is. Kudos for LA City Council for considering this ban.

[L.A. Voter]

I'd like to think most people who have chosen to declaw their cats did so because they had no idea what a cruel and radical procedure it is -- comparable to cutting off a human's fingertips and the first joint of each toe. It's so inhumane that it's been banned for years for owned wild cats throughout California -- now it's time to give domestic cats the same protection. Norfolk, Virginia banned it in 2007, and many other countries have banned it as cruel.

I think it's odd to say cats have no memory of the pain the procedure causes -- how could any human conceivably know what a cat knows or remembers? But it's obvious that cutting off digits and then expecting the animal to walk around, jump and use the litterbox normally, which involves using the paws, is deeply cruel. So is taking away a cat's only means of self-protection (except biting). How absurd to suggest that any animal is "completely cared for" by humans. Has your cat or dog EVER gotten out when you didn't intend for him or her to do so? Has a child, repairman, gardener or visitor ever accidentally let your cat out? Can you guarantee 100% it will never happen? Not if you're sane you can't. So don't gamble with your pet's ability to feel secure and defend him or herself.

Absolutely, buy a scratching post and a water pistol to deter unwanted scratching. But also recognize that no sofa is as important as a cat's health and right to live a secure, pain-free existence as far as possible. If you can't agree with that you have no right to subject that living creature to a life with so shallow and cruel an owner.

[Jim J]

I support this ban. Thanks to the Council for considering it. Declawing is considered unethical by veterinarians in many countries of the world.