Declawing is still legal—and common—in the United States and Canada. But how humane is it? And is it ethical? In the absence of definitive studies that can answer these questions, shelters are developing policies and practices that balance their desire to place animals and preserve the human-animal bond with their desire to prevent unnecessary and possibly pain-inducing procedures.

The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. —“Fog,” Chicago Poems

When he envisioned little cat feet as delicate weather harbingers, poet Carl Sandburg probably could not have predicted they’d be so maligned these many years later. It was only 1916, after all, long before cats were brought inside and kitty toes grew so offensive to the American mind-set that surgically removing pieces of them became not only accepted but routine.

“Declawing,” as it’s commonly called, is a phenomenon of the last quarter-century, often touted as a viable option for ensuring that pet felines won’t pull the stuffing out of both furniture and humans. But not everyone agrees with the practice; in the United Kingdom and more than 20 other countries across the globe, declawing is either illegal or acceptable only under extreme circumstances.

The procedure has its share of detractors in the United States as well, and their sentiments are clearly beginning to take root in the national conscience. Recent policy changes by two national veterinary associations attest to that; both the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Animal Hospital Association now recommend that veterinarians counsel clients in all the alternatives—training, nail-trimming, and deterrence—before agreeing to perform the surgery.

RELATED ARTICLE What National Organizations Are Saying About Declawing

But the simmering anti-declawing movement is relatively new in North America, reaching the boiling point only in California thus far. Outlawed in West Hollywood last year, the procedure would have received the same treatment statewide if Assemblyman Paul Koretz had persuaded enough fellow legislators in Sacramento to vote in favor of his anti-declawing legislation. Though Koretz’s bill died in committee, he is trying again with a new bill that would ban declawing of wild cat species. And at least two more California municipalities—Malibu and San Francisco—have begun to follow the lead of West Hollywood, adopting resolutions that condemn the practice of declawing and encourage pet owners to find more humane solutions.

Seen as a radical move by many, the West Hollywood ban was precipitated by a city councilman’s discovery that the procedure is not what its name implies—and his subsequent shock that he had removed more than just claws from his cat. Such revelations are all too common, say many shelter workers. Adoption applicants armed with the best intentions and the worst advice often think of declawing as their civic duty, saying in adoption interviews what they think counselors want to hear—and then seeming genuinely surprised by the notion that declawing is considered unacceptable in some circles. “I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do if it’s an inside cat!” many have been known to protest.

© Rhoda Peacher

Director Bill Lombardi’s show-and-tell about declawing surgeries—which involves an explanation of the procedure as well as pictures—leaves unsuspecting adoption applicants at the Gloucester County Animal Shelter in New Jersey practically “nauseated,” he says. When he goes on to explain that actual toe pieces are removed from the cat, they often say in disbelief that they’d always assumed declawing was literally claw removal—and nothing more.

Technically referred to as an “onychectomy,” the procedure resembles more of an amputation than a declaw. Cats’ claws are closely adhered to bone, so removing them requires taking away the last bones of the toes, along with all ten frontal tendons and nerves. It’s a process that many liken to the removal of a human fingertip at the first knuckle—and that has often been blamed for house-soiling, biting, and other changes in behavior. While laser surgery is said to be preferable because of reduced bleeding and pain in the post-operative period, researchers have found that long-term implications remain the same for both laser and scalpel operations.

Another procedure introduced more recently effectively deactivates cats’ claws by severing the tendons that extend the toes. Called a “tendonectomy,” the surgery retains the claws in the paws and is often thought to be more humane because of its shorter recovery time. But the method has its own set of problems. Since cats are unable to keep their claw length in check through vigorous scratching, owners must continually trim nails to prevent them from growing into the paw pads and causing infections.

And though tendonectomies are generally considered less traumatic because of decreased post-operative pain, a 1998 study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) found that the incidence of bleeding, lameness, and infection was similar for both procedures. Furthermore, the AVMA does not recommend tendonectomies as an alternative; at least one study has shown that owners are generally less happy with the tendonectomy procedure, and some have been known to put cats through a second surgery later to remove all of their claws.

While researchers have tried to determine the effects of declawing over the last couple of decades, the data remains confusing at best; study samples are sometimes too specific or too riddled with potential variables. As a result, there is just as much evidence to support the case against declawing as there is research to refute it, with some studies finding few or only short-term adverse reactions to the surgery and others finding medical complications and significant differences in behavior.

For instance, a 2001 study published in JAVMA found that behavior problems began in 33 percent of declawed cats following onychectomy—with nearly 18 percent either starting to bite or increasing the frequency of their bites, and more than 15 percent ceasing their use of the litter box. On the other hand, a study published in Companion Animal Practice in 1988 found that similar proportions of declawed and fully clawed cats were reported to be biters and housesoilers. Subsequent research has failed to explain the contradictions or provide more conclusive information, in part because behavior problems can take years to develop—from origins that aren’t always traceable.

Data-Dodging and Ethics-Balancing

In surveying the literature in a JAVMA piece in October 2001 (“Assessment of claims of short- and long-term complications associated with onychectomy in cats”), Tufts University clinical assistant professor Gary Patronek summarized the problem: “It seems unthinkable that an elective surgery performed on a quarter of owned cats could lack definitive evaluation, but that appears to be the case. ... Until more definitive data become available, practitioners will have no choice but to continue dodging opposing claims and balancing potential harms and benefits, using their own ethics and clinical impressions as yardsticks.”

While many veterinarians search for more scientific evidence to support decisions not to perform the procedure, others say the reason is already clear: Why cause pain to an animal merely for human convenience, especially when so many alternatives for training cats and minimizing their scratching damage already exist?

Does declawing lead to more relinquishments as a result of changes in behavior that occur when a cat’s natural defenses are taken away, or does not declawing lead to more relinquishments when intolerant pet owners get fed up with damage to their belongings?

The “pro-claw” camp has set up battlegrounds on the Web, where one site maintains a laudatory list of veterinarians who refuse to declaw and another publicly names and chastises those who perform the procedure. A peek at “letter to the editor” sections of veterinary journals illustrates the other extreme: In one issue of JAVMA last year, a Michigan veterinarian implied that anti-declawing advocates were part of the “left-wing extremist camp” whose “poorly thought out, knee-jerk reactions ... are an embarrassment to the rest of us who uphold our Veterinarian’s Oath by serving as our patients’ advocate.”

In response, veterinarian Jennifer Conrad, a high-profile opponent of declawing who helped lead the charge in West Hollywood, outlined a litany of reasons to avoid the procedure and debunked the long-touted arguments in favor of it. Noting that there is no persuasive evidence that declawing prevents relinquishment, Conrad described studies that report high complication rates for onychectomy and tendonectomy procedures and informed readers that declawing as a method of preventing the spread of zoonotic diseases is not recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The Veterinarian’s Oath can be distilled into one simple idea: above all, do no harm,” Conrad wrote. “... It is unfortunately common for veterinary clinics to agree to declaw a cat without adequately offering alternatives or client education. This is in contradiction to AVMA guidelines, and speaks to the fact that there are a few practitioners who hold their own agendas over the well-being of animals.”

These very public arguments leave veterinarians who don’t want to perform declawing surgeries in a tenuous position. Some refuse, choosing to educate clients about alternatives instead. Others worry that refusing to declaw risks losing patients, as in the case of the private veterinarian who does spay/neuter surgeries for the Oromocto and Area SPCA in New Brunswick, Canada. “He would rather not ever [declaw],” says shelter manager Tracy Marcotullio. “But he said, ‘I run a business, and if I don’t do it, then they’re going to go down the street.’ And I understand that—because if [pet owners are] hell-bent on declawing, then that’s what they’re going to do.”

Courtesy Tracy Marcotullio/ Oromocto and Area SPCA

Ultimately, sheltering professionals often find themselves facing the same conundrum: regardless of what they think of declawing, they are operating in the confines of a culture that clearly condones it. And many believe that if they refuse an adoption based on the fact that someone intends to declaw, the applicants will turn to the newspaper or pet store instead. Or, just as likely, they’ll lie to the adoption counselor, leave without the benefit of education regarding alternatives, and end up declawing the cat anyway.

For many shelters and veterinarians alike, reliance on inconclusive data and anecdotal information leads to a chicken-and-egg scenario when trying to set policies that will help both cats and their humans: Does declawing lead to more relinquishments as a result of changes in behavior that occur when a cat’s natural defenses are taken away, or does not declawing lead to more relinquishments when intolerant pet owners get fed up with damage to their belongings?

Declawed Cats Populating Shelters

Read a survey of the research, and you’ll think that the number of cats who begin biting and housesoiling post-declaw is probably minimal. But talk to longtime shelter workers, and you get a different story: “Normal cats are not turned in for not using their litter box,” says Ann Joly, executive director of the Healdsburg Animal Shelter in California. “They’re turned in for everything else—divorce, allergy, new baby, new wife, old husband, old wife, old baby. But when people turn animals in for not using the litter box, there is no way there is not a connection to [declawing surgeries].”

It’s easy to spot a declawed cat at the Healdsburg Animal Shelter. They don’t come out of their shells for days, Joly says, surmising that declawed cats are more stressed when they’re in an environment they can’t control. “They sit in their cage and [growl], and then I go back and [think], ‘Hmm, I bet he’s a declaw,’ ” she says. “And then four days later, when I can finally get my hands on him, he is.”

“You’d be surprised by the comments we get,” says Tracy Marcotullio of the Oromocto and Area SPCA in New Brunswick. “Most people say, ‘You guys paint the cats’ nails?!’... It opens up a whole dialogue, segueing right into, ‘Oh no, those are Soft Paws, and this is what they are.’ ... We’ve been able to get a lot of people to try them.”

Declawed cats also distinguish themselves at the Gloucester County Animal Shelter, says Lombardi, who’s been the director for three years and an animal control officer for 25. Cats with claws, he says, are always surrendered for human-related issues, mainly “moving and can’t take the cat with us.” Declawed cats, on the other hand, have behavior problems, and most who come in end up having to be euthanized. Even when Lombardi works with declawed cats and tries to place them in new homes, they often come back to the shelter for not using the litter box.

After consulting with behaviorist Suzanne Hetts, Patronek proposed an interesting theory regarding shelter workers’ tendencies to associate declawing with biting and housesoiling despite the dearth of corroborating data: It seems possible that owners who declaw their cats may have a low tolerance for property damage or other problems caused by pets, he wrote in his JAVMA analysis. If that’s the case, then those who would be more willing to declaw may also be more willing to relinquish at a higher rate when cats start peeing outside the litter box or engaging in other behaviors thought to be destructive.

Whatever the reasons for reports of high proportions of declawed cats relinquished for housesoiling, the end result is often the same: It falls into the laps of shelter workers to figure out how to help cats whom they feel have been “wrecked” by the surgical procedure.

“Almost all of our hotline calls are declawed cats with litter box issues,” says Pat Rock of the Oshkosh Area Humane Society in Wisconsin. “We understand that there are a lot of cats that don’t have these issues ... but the ones that do have problems are the ones that we see. That’s why we’re addressing this situation.”

Whereas Oshkosh staff used to tell applicants simply that shelter policy forbade adopters to declaw, counselors now talk about the issue “in a way that’s not offending people,” says Rock. If a potential adopter expresses an interest in the surgery, the counselor asks, “Would you consider giving him a chance before taking him to be declawed?”

The shelter keeps copies of a Whole Cat Journal article on hand to help explain the potential complications and side effects of declawing. Called “Why Cats Need Claws” (September 2002), the piece describes the pain some declawing surgeries cause when the cat wakes up, the possible balance problems that may result when the cat begins standing differently to compensate for the loss of parts of his toes, and the weakening of the shoulders and upper back that some people believe develops when cats can no longer scratch properly. Author Gary Loewenthal outlines common myths about declawing and proceeds to dispel them before providing a wealth of advice on humane alternatives for pet owners.

Starting a Dialogue With Adopters

The article has helped Oshkosh staff get the attention of adopters, who have been known to tune out during the counseling session but appear to pay more heed to advice from external sources. “It seems to give more credibility to what we say,” says Rock. “A couple of the veterinarians tell people that we’re kind of ‘way out there,’ and that there’s nothing wrong with declawing. And [the article] kind of gives a perspective that [adopters] haven’t heard before, and it’s not directly from us. It explains a lot of things people don’t think about.”

Whatever the reasons for reports of high proportions of declawed cats relinquished for housesoiling, the end result is often the same: It falls into the laps of shelter workers to figure out how to help cats whom they feel have been “wrecked” by the surgical procedure.

The approach is working; the shelter has doubled its sales of scratching posts and has even received calls from grateful people who’ve decided to get a cat elsewhere but still want to let the staff know they will never declaw again. Reinforcing the shelter’s pledge to help cat owners is a free nail-clipping service that Rock and a colleague offer to anyone who fears trimming cat claws. If the pet owners are still nervous about it after witnessing the procedure, the nail-clipping team actually shows up at the family’s doorstep once a month to do the deed.

“The two of us can do it really fast,” she says. “And we have a couple that gives us regular donations and another one that gives us food. And they’re also then helping educate other people.”

The Oromocto shelter in New Brunswick uses a similar, albeit somewhat flashier, tactic to gain and retain the attention of adopters. By making sure at least one of their adoptable cats is outfitted in Soft Paws—brightly colored vinyl claw caps that allow kitties to scratch without doing damage—shelter staff reel curious visitors into a spontaneous conversation about declawing.

“You’d be surprised by the comments we get,” says Marcotullio. “Most people say, ‘You guys paint the cats’ nails?!’ ... It opens up a whole dialogue, segueing right into, ‘Oh no, those are Soft Paws, and this is what they are.’ And we show them the packages. We’ve been able to get a lot of people to try them.”

When they first see cats done up like painted ladies with pink or blue claws, the public isn’t quite sure what to make of it all. But people are delighted when staff offer to help them put Soft Paws on their own cats—the offer is even open to visitors who haven’t adopted from the shelter.

Recently, one such visitor needed help with her ornery scratcher but was skeptical about putting the vinyl caps on the kitty—a process that involves nail-trimming and then gluing. So Marcotullio offered to do it herself. “It literally only takes a couple minutes,” she says. “So she came in the next day, brought her cat, and we popped them on, and she was quite happy. ... She was like, ‘Wow, that was easier than I thought!’ ”

“We figured when we first got the product in [that] it’s all fine and good to sell it, but if you’re not standing behind it and helping people ... you’re not going to get people to try it,” Marcotullio says. “And if we’re just telling people to go home and put them on and they’re not using them correctly, then we’re fighting a losing battle. Because ... [the caps] are not going to work properly, and the people are going to say, ‘These are a piece of crap; we’re not using them ever again.’ ”

A lower-maintenance, more self-explanatory product is Sticky Paws, another favorite of shelters and veterinarians trying to discourage declaw surgeries. The transparent adhesive strips can be applied to furniture, stereo speakers, rugs, and other household items. Harmless to both fabric and cats, Sticky Paws acts as a deterrent and sends cats back to where they should be scratching in the first place: their scratching posts. With a motto of “Don’t Declaw ... Get Sticky Paws!” the company is also a helpful advocate, donating to humane causes and devoting packaging space to spay/neuter and pro-shelter messages.

What Does “Last Resort” Really Mean?

When all else fails—when the vinyl claw coverings, the adhesive furniture protectors, the nail-trimming, the scratching posts, and the counseling are still not enough of a deterrent—declawing is deemed an acceptable measure of “last resort” by many veterinarians, shelters, and national organizations. From the AVMA to The HSUS to the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, leading veterinary groups and animal protection advocates recommend declawing only after everything else has already been tried or under certain other conditions. For instance, the AVMA believes the surgery is acceptable if the cat’s scratching presents a zoonotic risk to the owner, and the CVMA deems it acceptable for cats who “would otherwise be denied a home or face euthanasia.”

“We know that everybody can go to the paper and get a cat free of charge and go to the vet and get it declawed or do whatever they want with it,” says Chantal Young of the Winnipeg Humane Society. “And the fact is that they’ve chosen to come here—we’ve been given the opportunity to educate clients and let them know what declawing entails and what alternatives are available.”

Since the “last resort” argument is the premise behind so many national recommendations and local policies, it seems there would be data on the likelihood of owners to relinquish cats with claws and on the propensity of potential adopters to reject a shelter that prohibits declawing. But while studies have shown that many owners relinquish cats for scratching furniture or other household items, it’s unclear whether a declawing surgery would have prevented those surrenders—or whether those cat owners were aware of effective training options in the first place.

Research designed to answer that question appears to be scarce to nonexistent, yet the “last resort” argument lives on. Referring to a Vet Forum report from 1994 (“Declawing revisited. Controversy over consequences,” G.M. Landsberg), Conrad describes “a serious disconnect” between the perceptions of vets and the perceptions of cat owners regarding declawing; she cites a survey in which 50 percent of veterinarians responding speculated that participating cat owners would have relinquished their cats had they not been declawed, when in fact only 4 percent of those owners said they would have made that choice.

Even if the “last resort” argument does have legs to stand on, how often is declawing really performed as a final measure, only after all other options have been tried? While it’s clear that many veterinarians try to steer their clients away from declawing and educate them about the alternatives, old habits die hard, and there are still legions of vets and pet owners who treat the surgery as a routine preventative rather than a desperate intervention.

© Rhoda Peacher

“[R]elatively few declaws are last-ditch efforts to save a cat from going back to the shelter,” writes Loewenthal in “Why Cats Need Claws.” “Most declaws are done preemptively and routinely, often as part of a spay/neuter package—assembly-line declawing. In veterinary clinics across the country, kittens have their claws permanently removed even in the absence of any claw-related problems, and before any humane alternatives are given a chance. Furthermore, the average cat owner consents to declawing having only a vague notion of what the procedure is, what possible side effects can occur, or even why it’s necessary.”

Americans love “one-stop shopping,” says Patronek, and package deals were being offered long before anyone questioned the ethics or prudence of declawing. “And then we have a situation where now people are saying, ‘Well, gee, maybe there are some issues with it.’ Well, that’s kind of hard to ‘unpackage’ real quick,” Patronek says. “It doesn’t happen overnight.”

Concerned by the tone of the declawing-related dialogue, Patronek cautions that change takes time. “It’s kind of like where we were with the euthanasia thing, and people lost sight of the fact that things were improving and changing regularly, steadily, year after year,” he says. “So there was oftentimes all the hysteria—‘Oh my God, why aren’t things getting better?’ ”

Things are, in fact, getting better, says Patronek, citing the events of the last few years as “incredibly positive.” Not only have national organizations been issuing cautionary position statements on the subject of declawing, but more veterinary school graduates are using their own ethical barometers in their job searches, sometimes rejecting positions with practices that perform declaw surgeries.

“There is a greater sense that this is something that needs to be addressed and discussed as a separate entity with its own risks and benefits—that you don’t just package it,” Patronek says. “... There is a consciousness-raising going on.”

“Cats are tactile creatures, and claws are one of their interfaces to the world,” says Gary Loewenthal. “From the feather-soft scrape to the clenching grip, from the tentative whisk to the decisive pounce, claws are at the heart of how cats interact with their environment. How could a cat not miss them?”

The “package deal” offers aren’t always exclusive of humane considerations either. Because the personal experiences of veterinarians attest to the fact that declawing surgeries are less traumatic for young kittens than for adult cats, vets are often more comfortable performing the surgeries on babies in order to avoid inflicting trauma on an adult cat later.

“So that’s the really difficult conundrum here,” says Patronek. “When you’ve got a young kitten that has never ever shown any tendency to do anything wrong and you’re just doing this routinely, what if you’re declawing these cats and they would never scratch? But then the flip side is if they do start to scratch, you’re going to have to do it at a time when perhaps the surgery may be more painful and challenging and the side effects are worse.”

Starting a Dialogue With Veterinarians

Sheltering professionals left to wade through the congealed mess of fact, fiction, speculation, and ethical quandaries wax philosophical when discussing how far they’ll go in their anti-declawing policies. Those who refuse to adopt cats to people who say they’ll declaw defend their policies as being the most respectful of the cat and the most sensitive to his future prospects—and they pose questions that aren’t easy to answer: “Because a dog chews, are you going to take his teeth out?” asks Lombardi. “No, you use a crate, and you give [dogs] something to chew on.”

© Rhoda Peacher

Joly echoes that sentiment. Though she doesn’t have many people in her area insisting on declawing their adopted cats, the mere mention sends up a red flag in the files of those who do. “If somebody came in and said, ‘I’m gonna chop a dog’s toes off,’ would we adopt it?” she asks. “We wouldn’t. So why would we say it’s okay for cats to have their toes chopped off?”

The decision not to declaw is just common sense to many. “Cats use their claws—by choice—for scratching, playing, climbing, and kneading on a daily basis. Each of these enjoyable activities is impaired by declawing,” says Loewenthal. “But claws have more than a utilitarian purpose. Cats are tactile creatures, and claws are one of their interfaces to the world. From the feather-soft scrape to the clenching grip, from the tentative whisk to the decisive pounce, claws are at the heart of how cats interact with their environment. How could a cat not miss them?”

They are compelling arguments, but veterinarians, at least in Lombardi’s community, aren’t buying them so far. Angered by Lombardi’s successful efforts to gain county approval to forbid the declawing of adopted cats, some of the vets are essentially “blackballing” him, Lombardi says. Just as a few Oshkosh veterinarians are portraying their local humane society as radical, some in Gloucester County tell clients “they don’t know what they’re talking about over there” and accuse the shelter of promoting an idea that’s not scientifically validated.

But that contention may be understandable from the point of view of many veterinarians who are employing up-to-date techniques in their practices and attending to animal comfort, says Patronek. While the veterinary field does include a contingent of “hack surgeons” whose outdated methods can lead to suffering of declawed cats, veterinarians who do their jobs correctly don’t see the kinds of post-operative complications often described by declawing opponents, he says: the nightmare tales of horrible bleeding, screaming, and pain.

Pat Rock and a colleague provide a show-and-tell in claw-trimming to shelter visitors; if interested cat owners are still nervous about performing the procedure on their own, the manicurists actually show up at the family’s doorstep once a month to do the deed.

“When I worked in practice many, many years ago ... we used to do these little kittens in the practice, and they would pop up and with some analgesics and the anesthetics we used, they were running around the cage afterwards. You would have been hard-pressed to pick out which cat was declawed,” says Patronek. “And so that is the personal experience of many veterinarians with declaw in this modern day and age. And so if you go in there screaming, ‘Oh my god, this is what happens, this is what happens,’ saying how horrible it is and showing these mutilated pictures that you pull off the Internet, they’re going to be like, ‘What kind of a wacko are you, because I’m not seeing this.’ It flies in the face of their experience.”

Patronek recommends approaching local veterinarians on a “reasonable middle ground” to discuss declawing and its alternatives—something Lombardi and several of his U.S. and Canadian colleagues say they plan to do soon. In some areas, shelter workers certainly have their work cut out for them; ironically, some vets declaw but then routinely refer owners of cats with behavior problems such as biting and housesoiling to the shelters.

“Our veterinary community is adamant that they will not euthanize a healthy animal regardless of if there are underlying behavior issues,” says Chantal Young, adoption coordinator for the Winnipeg Humane Society in Canada. “And that’s a struggle that we deal with on an ongoing basis—that the vets are really willing to declaw, but they’re not really willing to pony up when there are problems and help the owner out. So we’ve kind of become the bad guy of the situation.”

Setting Your Own Ethical Limits

Those shelters that still adopt cats to people who insist on declawing them admit they’re engaging in a compromise of sorts—but see it as opting for the lesser of two evils: Young and her colleagues at the Winnipeg Humane Society believe that rejecting adopters who plan to declaw jeopardizes a cat’s chances for a new home. Though some staff who see their share of “angry declawed cats” at the relinquishment counter are vehemently opposed to declawing, the shelter takes the position that, as Young puts it, “a declawed cat is probably better than a dead cat.”

“We know that everybody can go to the paper and get a cat free of charge and go to the vet and get it declawed or do whatever they want with it,” says Young. “And the fact is that they’ve chosen to come here— we’ve been given the opportunity to educate clients and let them know what declawing entails and what alternatives are available.”

Even when Gloucester County Animal Shelter director Bill Lombardi works with declawed cats and tries to place them in new homes, they often come back to the shelter for not using the litter box.

Like many other organizations, the Winnipeg Humane Society urges those looking to declaw their new pets to choose one who’s already gone through the surgery. If the adoption area is full of only clawed cats, potential adopters can sign up on a waiting list to be contacted when a declawed cat becomes available.

About half the people intending to declaw take the shelter up on the waiting-list offer, says Young, while others are persuaded to try alternatives to declawing—scratching posts, vinyl nail coverings, and furniture protectors. But some remain adamant—and the shelter doesn’t turn them away. “We know that however unfortunate the procedure is, there are relatively happy, well-adjusted declawed cats living in this world, and to deny them that opportunity, I think, would be unfortunate, when at this time in our situation we’re still euthanizing healthy, adoptable cats.”

But a declawed cat may end up euthanized anyway after enduring the trauma of surgery and being unable to return to his normal routines in a manner that will be acceptable to the owner, Lombardi believes. He works as hard as he can to assist pet owners in making the right choice, educating anyone who will listen and offering a waiting list to those who still insist on adopting a declawed cat.

© Rhoda Peacher

“I’m not saying, ‘Let’s put an animal to sleep because we don’t want to declaw it’—I’m not all about that,” he says. “But let’s give them a chance here. I had cats all my life, and I never declawed them. They use cat-scratching posts, or they love those catnip cardboard boxes. Let’s educate people—and I ask my vets to do the same thing.”

The anti-declawing provision in the Gloucester County shelter’s adoption policies may have raised the ire of vets in the community, but it has gleaned only a handful of complaints from members of the general public. In fact, a lot of people who previously declawed their cats have now changed their minds because of the education Lombardi and his staff are providing in the form of a spiel about vinyl claw caps, hands-on lessons in nail-trimming, and a discussion of the benefits of scratching posts and other products.

“I adopt to all of them,” he says. “I’m not turning people away. I want to educate—that’s what I’m here for. We’re supposed to be the animal professional that tells you all these things. ... And I ask them, ‘Please call me before you just [decide] that you’re going to take its claws out—because you may be doing something wrong.’ And we do get those phone calls.”

When cat owners who’ve already declawed their pets end up relinquishing them to the shelter for housesoiling or biting, Young and other staff at Winnipeg advise them that the destructive behaviors they’re witnessing could be a result of declawing. “It’s difficult when someone surrenders an animal to determine how effective our counseling is, but I’d like to think that every time we have that opportunity to counsel, we’re getting something across to them,” says Young. “The fact is that we do care and that we are here to help them out, and if that’s all they remember if they get a cat in the future—is that we’re here to help them—then we’ve done something good.”