Declawing may be the only viable solution for some owners who would otherwise give their cat up, said Joycelyn Quan of the Glendale Small Animal Hospital.
“We certainly try to counsel the client as to what other options are besides declawing,” said Quan, who has practiced in Glendale for 21 years and has seen multiple generations of pets come through her office.
Regular nail trimming, plastic nail caps and scratching posts can all help mitigate the damage an enthusiastic feline can render on furniture, Quan said, but if nothing else works, surgery is an option.
“The declawing is not such a painful process,” she said. “We offer pain medication to keep the pets comfortable. Once they recover, then everything is back to normal.”
The local bans may turn out to be ineffective anyway, she said, noting that pet owners will find an end around.
“If they really want to have it done, I know they can go to a different city to have it done,” Quan said. “It just makes it difficult for the veterinarians in that community.”
But some animal advocates who have pushed for the bans argue that the practice of declawing is a mutilation equivalent to removing the first joint of a human finger that can cause long-term pain for cats.
The Paw Project, based in Santa Monica, works to ban the practice, arguing that cats can suffer lifelong pain after declawing that may cause other behavioral problems, such as biting and avoiding the litter box.
Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Berkeley and San Francisco have all recently adopted bans on declawing, and other cities may join them before the end of the year.
The Burbank City Council is scheduled to consider a similar measure Tuesday after more than a dozen speakers last week pushed for a declawing ban to be fast-tracked.
But in Glendale, several City Council members said they are not considering doing so.
Councilman John Drayman, a member of the Glendale Humane Society, said he has no plans to introduce such a ban. He pointed out that he has a Persian cat who has her claws.
The California Veterinary Medical Assn. argues that such local ordinances create an unenforceable patchwork of laws that get in the way of veterinarians making sound medical decisions.
“People are allowing City Council members to make medical decisions for their cats instead of leaving it up to licensed professionals,” said Mark Nunez, president of the California Veterinary Medical Assn.
The organization also argues that declawing is preferable to an owner deciding to abandon or euthanize a pet that can’t be trained not to scratch.
