[FEL-L] 50 years of doing what

[GemOJungle at aol.com]

Do not go over the top about her credentials.  She is and has been,  for a 
long time,  in the BIZ of buying and selling animals,  but  she is not an expert 
about science and surgery.
This is an emotional issue for the no declaw with cat people who know  the 
pain it can cause, and it's a convenience and  or ignorance issue for the rest.
Animal training has come a long way in the last decade or 2 and some people  
have not.
Far more of the professional animal trainers and I personally  know, believe 
is that this declaw issue is a moot point and that they  will not do it.  It's 
as I have said, all about real hands on big  cat experience outside of cages 
in new and changing environments.  I  think you all would be hard pressed to 
find any real trainers (ie..people that  make their real living training big 
cats for film, TV, and live big cat  shows......not magic, not petting zoos,  
people who are paid Hundreds of  thousands of dollars for their work with, not 
selling cats) that think  declawing is good for the cat.
 
I know a few real trainers who do declaw that do it solely for  the insurance 
companies and for the film studios' satisfaction. Both of  whom no nothing 
about what they are asking for. Declawed cats bite when  clawed cats might only 
scratch.  I do not think for a minute that any cat  is safe and that it will 
behave because of its claws or lack there  of. Only when extreme protocols of 
big cat handling are observed can  any cat be worked safely and they are only 
observer by a very few. They  certainly are not observed by most of the ones 
claiming to be experts  and pro-declaw.  They are relying on things like 
declawing, luck,  chance and their personal relationship that they hope will hold up 
under  stress to get by as they do very minimal big cat work with a few  cats. 
  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.breuckman.com/pipermail/felines-l/attachments/20060808/d17fd833/attachment.html