Cat Declawing Ban Spreads Through Calif.

(AP)  Two Southern California cities have voted to ban the declawing of cats, joining San Francisco and Santa Monica in outlawing the practice.

The Beverly Hills City Council voted 5-0 Tuesday night to approve a declawing ban, except in cases of medical necessity.

The Los Angeles City Council also approved a similar ordinance Tuesday. Berkeley approved the ban last week.

Officials in both cities say they wanted the ordinance to take effect before Jan. 1, when a state law bars cities and counties from regulating the practice of veterinary medicine.

The California Veterinary Medical Association opposed the ban, saying pet owners should be responsible for declawing decisions in consultation with their vets.

The city of West Hollywood outlawed declawing in 2003.

[BoldChapeau]

If your furniture is that important to you, don't get a cat. Mutilating an animal to protect inanimate objects is beyond outrageous; it's grotesque.

[MaryaDD]

Wow. After perusing a few of these comments, I finally had to just stop before going any further. It really saddens me to see such blatant ignorance and selfishness.
As a former veterinary technician and animal shelter worker, I am incredibly familiar with the practice of declawing and its inherent flaws. Many of you may not know this, but cats actually do need their claws for many uses. Furthermore, a declaw is never a "simple procedure." The operation itself consists of actually amputating the last digit of the toe...10 times. To get a better picture of this, look at your own hand. See the joint just above your fingernail? From there, down. Now, obviously cats walk on their feet. Can you imagine having 5 amputations on each foot, and then being forced to walk? Oftentimes, cats will even begin going outside the litter box post-op, because it's so painful for them to actually use it. The declaw procedure is terribly invasive, and causes an incredibly long and painful recovery; often with many post-op complications. In fact, in my professional experience, I've even known of patients who died following the procedure.

Due to the anatomical make-up of felines, the claws are necessary for balance, exercise, and stretching. In fact, the stretching you may see a cat do while digging their claws into a surface is actually the only way a cat can stretch and tone the muscles of his or her back and shoulders, as well as keeping the joints in good working order. A declaw procedure actually changes the conformation of the foot, and how the cat's weight is distributed. This can lead to chronic back pain.

Also, one of the reasons cats enjoy using scratching posts so much is because they actually have scent glands in the pads of their feet. By following their instinctive behavior to practice the scratching motion, they safely and odorlessly (to us) mark their own territory. Always buy a scratching post that is twice as tall as your cat is when standing on his or her hind legs; this will enable them to stretch appropriately. (I actually just fostered a 5yr old cat who was supposedly a chronic furniture scratcher. Within a couple months, he was using only the scratching post in my home!)

If, in the event that the cat's guardian has a medical condition that would make it dangerous for the guardian to be injured, various options can be tried. For the rest of the cat-loving world, consistent nail-trims work just fine! You can certainly do them yourself, or have the technicians at your vet do it for you.

[129cjs]

There are many reasons to declaw a cat, though ignorant people tend not to want to realize it. So, this ban is saying, in effect, that if your are elderly and have thin skin, or for some reason you are immune system compromised, you can not have a cat, as simply clipping the nails does not assure you of your skin not breaking. I would much prefer on of my cats to be in a loving home that had to have it declawed for medical reasons than to have the owner have to give it up. Simply sick, is all I can say! Just more of our rights being taken away---and I thought I lived in the good ole USA! We allow the government to legislate absoutely everything, now to include our abliity to have a pet. How sad is this. I think it is high time the American public got their backbone back and started fighting back. Those who continue to pour millions of dollars into the AR movement, thinking they are "helping" animals, need to step back and see your dollars going to work----against you. Next time, have the guts to ask, how many shelters do you actually operate, why is the kill rate of the animals you "rescue" so high? How much of our donated money for the animals is salary for the officers of the organization? How much donated money for the animals are you bribing legislators with to vote the way you want? Animal Rights people? Heavens NO! They are no more than ANIMAL RADICALS! And for the record, I do not believe in blanket declawing, but there are valid, medical reasons to do so.

[fabrat1]

Cats are nasty anyway and I don't understand why anyone would want one to begin with.

[mandylou4u]

If you are getting your cats "fixed" they are having pain and discomfort too. I have 3 cats that are all declawed and they are about the most loveable creatures imaginable. They have no idea their claws are gone because it was done when they were very young. I felt I had to do this one because we rent and I cannot afford to pay for new walls in every room, two I had a responsiblilty of rescuing these cats and let me tell you 3 young cats will all scratch together on whatever it is, three my cats never liked those scratching posts, they were a nuisance in themselves, and four my kitties don't go outside. California you are letting your government control your brains and you will all be prisoners soon if you don't stand up for yourselves. I pay for the cats food, shelter, vet bills, and anything else they need. If they need to be cleaned I give them a bath. It's that easy! I refuse to let someone tell me what I can and can't do with my pets!

[JustYourAverageReader]

Why not just ban cats? Are they not responsible for a lot of human suffering along the lines of allergies? Or require cat "owners" to get away from the TV and bond with their cat(s) outdoors?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/18/tech/main5696931.shtml?tag=stack

[displeased]

Cat owners are weird. Cat owners who mutilate their cats are even weirder.

[rickwar]

"Better the claws than the cat"

Think about it.

As to male human cicumcision well, no advantage there much, works both ways. So why not pass a law for that?

[JustYourAverageReader]

Any chance of having Pelosi declawed before it is outlawed everywhere in California?

[mandylou4u]

That's kinda funny

[la120365]

For anyone in favor of this law who thinks they know best for ALL cats and owners, I have a question or two.

Will you mind when your local city council says you can not smoke IN your house? ( I am a non-smoker and hate it by the way)

Will you mind when the local city council says you can not spank your child in your house?

Will you mind when the local city council tells you which tv to buy and when to watch? (happening in California now, the which one to buy part).

It is easy to say don't abuse cats with surgery but don't PRESUME your local city council or any government official can better decide for YOU how to handle your household.

No one cares about a particular law until it hits THEM, then the WORLD changes.

Come on, just move California back to the communist 70s when govt. controlled ALL aspects of a person's life in the USSR and get it over with.

This is WAY over the top.