[FEL-L] (no subject)

[Tim Stoffel]

On Wed, 2006-08-09 at 01:23 -0500, Scarlett Somers Bellingham wrote:
> I can not believe that a full post was devoted to the de-clawing 
> issue....... I don't know Brian, but his mind is obviously set and will 
> not bend.... I do know Jan and her credentials...... the issue of 
> painful de-clawing for any cat, what ever size, lays directly with the 
> Vet performing the surgery....... we have raised exotics for 20 years 
> and have had successes and failures with regard to grow backs, 
> depending on the expertise of our Vets....... all are done at a very 
> early age (within the first 9 months)....... and we have never had a 
> negative experience performing the surgery early in our cats 
> lives.......... they will still swat (and as Jan says, will knock you 
> on your ass), but when done early enough, it's not like they miss their 
> claws...... they are performing a instinctual act, claws or not, means 
> nothing to them........ our last de-claws were done by laser 
> surgery......... no scarring......... no mess.......... no 
> growths........ AND NO EFFECT ON THE CATS PSYCHY.... damn Brian, grow 
> up and move on............

The last declaw we did on a pair of leopards some years back, was so
well done that they were actively climbing the walls of their pen 36
hours later. Although I have seen botched declaws, I have never seen one
among our cats, some of who are getting up there in age. On the
flipside, we decided not to declaw a lion we raised a few years back,
for reasons having nothing to do with the ethics of declawing. The
results with this lion were so good that we have decided not to do any
more declaws.

This is all I am going to say on this issue.....I see validity on both
sides. But, one side should not be allowed to remove the other side's
choices!

Tim Stoffel