Kitty Declaw Update

Well, the "young adult", already spayed, shorthair, my wife and daughter got from the animal shelter, last month, turned out to be only five months old, according to our vet. Yeah, and they were only going to the shelter to "look". (imagine a painful roll of the eyes graemlin here)

Anyway, she rules the roost, assists our 100 lb. yellow lab to check out a knock at the door, or other noises, plays with him and everything else and is an otherwise lucky find. She alternately sleeps with everyone and wakes us before the alarm, so nobody oversleeps.

I took your advice and bought one of the recommended claw clippers and trim 1/4 of her front claws. We covered our two pieces of good furniture and I made a scratching post out of a carpet sample guled to a box glued to a 2 X 12 scrap. So far, so good, and no litter box problems or hair balls.

Thanks for advising us against declawing as it's working in our particular case - so far. When we catch her scratching something inappropriate we tell her no and rub her scratching post. She immediately goes to it and claws like crazy.

I was always more appreciative of dogs but the two cats we had have enlightened me to the fun of the feline world.

Thanks again CPFers for your good advice.

Jay

I'm so happy that you didn't declaw her. My cat is not declawed and has never clawed on the furniture since she has several scratching posts around the house.

The pros recommend a spray bottle of water in case your cat does exhibit clawing behavior on your fine furniture. You can squirt her from several feet away and will never know that you are the culprit.

It's worked successfully for me several times.

Marty

Unless your cat enjoys water like mine does. Still can't figure that one out, he LOVES being squirted. .

Hey you can use nail caps. I use them on my cats that have a problem with clawing things. They glue them on each claw and they last over a month for my cats. They are blunt tipped. They are called softpaws.

Jayflash, glad it's working out for the people and the animals. "Happy" animal stories, are, well.....um, nice. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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jayflash said:I was always more appreciative of dogs but the two cats we had have enlightened me to the fun of the feline world.

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They definitely operate on a different wavelength than other creatures, but as I'm sure you're finding out, they are some of the most personable, mischevious ( in a good way ), and innocent "furry people" you'll ever share time with.....other than Dolphins that is. Glad to hear you chose to work with your feline to modify and refocus their clawing behavior instead of permanently altering and disarming them.