Santa Monica Votes to Draft Ordinance On City-Wide Cat De-Claw Ban

Santa Monica Votes to Draft Ordinance On City-Wide Cat De-Claw Ban


SANTA MONICA, Calif., Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a 5-1 vote, Santa Monica City Council passed a motion Tuesday to draft an ordinance that restricts the practice of amputating the toes of animals, also known as "de-clawing." The motion was brought by City Council Members Kevin McKeown and Gleam Davis, who requested that the ordinance, if passed, be enacted prior to December 31, 2009, after which date local jurisdictions' authority in such matters will be usurped by SB 762, a pending state law limiting cities' rights to ban medical procedures they deem inhumane.

De-clawing is a misnomer, according to McKeown, who said, "We are not talking about a pampering manicure for cats. De-clawing is inhumane mutilation and provides no direct therapeutic benefit to animals." The procedure of de-clawing is actually an amputation of the last bone in each of a cat's toes.

McKeown was first introduced to the deleterious effects of de-clawing by Jennifer Conrad, DVM founder of the Paw Project, a non-profit organization that promotes public awareness about the crippling effects of de-clawing. As a result of the Paw Project's efforts, California now bans declawing of captive wild cats, the USDA forbids its licensees to de-claw, and West Hollywood, California became the first city in the U.S. to ban declawing.

Opposing the ordinance was Mark Nunez, representing the California Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), a trade organization supporting business interests of veterinarians. Nunez argued that the ordinance would interfere with veterinarian's practice and result in more cats being relinquished to shelters, a warning that is not supported by the statistics. In 2004, the CVMA successfully sued the City of West Hollywood to overturn its 2003 ordinance, and in 2007, the California Court of Appeal upheld the right of cities to outlaw procedures that they deem inhumane. To circumvent the Court's decision, and ensure its members can continue to profit by de-clawing cats, the CVMA pushed for a bill (SB 762) preventing other California cities from restricting procedures performed by veterinarians. The bill becomes law January 1, 2010. San Francisco is among other cities currently considering anti-declawing ordinances before SB 762 takes effect.

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-23-2009/0005099846&EDATE=

;)

Yours truly,
The Upholstered Furniture Lobby

:rofl:

My cat was already declawed before I adopted him from a rescue.

All of my cats have been rescues since I became an adult.

:hi:

They're great!

my own furniture would be in better condition. ;)

I realize that cats don't have rights, but " the California Court of Appeal upheld the right of cities to outlaw procedures that they deem inhumane. " It's really hard for PETA to on the one hand argue that animals have rights and then to presumably argue that people have a right to have an abortion.

And no, I am not anti-abortion. I would prefer that there aren't any, I can't reconcile it, but I'm not for a law against it.

already covered by a higher law. And, animal rights organizations like PETA would only have a disconnect if a) they'd made any statements on abortion, and b) one accepts the premise that abortion is an "inhumane procedure". Neither of those applies, as far as I know...

A cat is an independently viable being who's existence does not immediately compromise another being.

A fetus is not independently viable and its presence does compromise the quality of life of the woman carrying it.

Basically the big difference is, a cat is not literally a part of its owners' body. Despite what some owners may thing.

You'll also notice that PETA does not oppose sterilizing cats.

It is cruel cruel cruel to de-claw a cat. Anyone and I mean ANYONE that owns a cat and opts to de-claw the cat does not deserve to own this precious animal!

As for the damn sofa, it will end up in a landfill eventually anyway.

I have a sofa and yes it has been "clawed" at times. I simply buy a new slipcover for it now and then. Said sofa is over 20 years old so :P on that!

:dem: :kick: & Recommend!!!

Why not just educate people? I would rather require spaying or neutering of all non-purebred cats. That would go a long way toward reducing the excess animal population.

The veterinarian who opposes the ordinance, though, doesn't really care about cats ending up in shelters; he just doesn't want to lose the $$$ he makes on declawing.

To my mind, people who declaw their cats are saying they care more about their furniture than they do about having any pet, so they might as well admit it and not have any pets. They are looking upon their cats as just another piece of house furniture, rather than as living creatures.

then DO NOT get one. It really is that simple.

I'm all for spaying and neutering kittens/cats. There are too many that never find good homes. :(

I have 3 cats myself. Two of them claw outside and one of them uses this cardboard claw thing I have that you can put catnip on. That goes over well most of them time.

However, said oldie sofa has the scent of probably a dozen other cats that I've had over the years. That is why it gets clawed once in awhile. Frankly I'd rather have and old clawed sofa than a cat that got all beat up when it got out being it has no claws. That is the worst possible scenario for the de-clawed cat besides living in pain.

The more cities such as San Francisco that pass such ordinances the better. Once the word gets out as to how evil this practice is, perhaps it will become illegal statewide is my hope!

It is a start and a good one to end de-clawing in the the whole USA is my hope.

Yes, declawing is stupid and vicious.

Do cats claw furniture? Yes, if they don't have scratching posts and haven't been taught how to use them. Over thirty years of being owned by a succession of cats, totalling six in all, I have succeeded in teaching every single one to use scratching posts instead of furniture.

Tips:

The scratching post has to be heavy enough and stable enough (wide base, etc.) so that it won't tip, startling the cat, when it's scratched.

It has to be tall enough so that the cat can stretch out and still not overshoot the top.

Rub some catnip into the top and lead the cat over to it to get him or her started. When they reach up and put their paws on the scratching post in the process of smelling the catnip on top, bingo, they get the idea that the post is scratchable.

Some cats will only scratch on carpet covered posts, some prefer sisal covered.

Have enough scratching posts around the house so that nearby upholstered furniture isn't more convenient.

A cat is a living, precious animal. A sofa isn't.

I have two cats and unscratched furniture. Anyone that has cats and complains about furniture scratching is a lazy owner. I have a scratching post that one kitty loves, and the other prefers to used a rug in my bedroom. Neither have ever scratched on my furniture.

Edited to add: Since I don't want them to scratch me accidentally, we play beauty shop and I clip their nails as needed. :)

Doesn't matter what I do. Doesn't matter what options I give them. They use those options...AND the furniture, too, when the spirit moves them.

So I do what I have to...I clip 'em, I try to Soft Paw 'em, I put double-sided tape on the attractive furniture parts. But I will not declaw.

Good, declawing is just horrific. When you get a cat, the claws are part of it. :)

Maybe I'm just lucky that Mia & Monty (he's my avatar) have never been tempted by my furniture. Well, I think once Monty put his paws on a chair and when I yelled out "oh hell no!" he quickly rethought that idea. ;)

all full grown with all their claws. They all used to use this nasty, dirty,70's, barrel chair to do all their scratching. They wouldn't scratch anything else, not even scratching posts.

I thought it was a good idea to keep this thing around..(perhaps hide it a little) to keep the four cats off the furniture and drapes. But Noooooooo!! Bobby got sick of looking at that chair and we just HAD to throw it out.

I would guess it was about 4-6 months later when all of our furniture got shredded.

I would NOT have cats indoors at all if they had claws - they shred things.

You'd you like to have your fingers chopped off at the joint?

The only damage they do is to the (easily replaceable) outer screen on a window by the door. They use their claws to twang it like a string instrument when they need to be let in, and it wears on the screen.

My sisters had some wonderful cats, some of whom destroyed things and some didn't. The problem was that the one who did, destroyed everything. She loved the corners of the couch, which looked like cotton candy when she was finished. She loved footstools.

Mind you, my mom has a wonderful dog who completely out of the blue chewed up a 200 year old footstool a couple of months ago. But that was out of character and it shouldn't have been left on the floor, aka I'm still considering executing my mother for doing that.

We live in an unincorporated village and there are no ordinances of any type here beyond county which say that if an animal attacks you on your property you can kill it. Those cat fill my mulched flower beds with crap. They clawed the doorposts to our garage so badly that we had to clad them with metal. In fact, we ended up cladding all the door jambs and corner posts of buildings because they would just move on. I noticed this week that since those avenues aren't available to them now, they've begun clawing up my arbor. Talk to the neighbor about it? He just smiles stupidly and says something about he knows they can be a problem sometime. I'd settle for declawing as an answer because it gets expensive trying to keep up with damage done by animals you don't own.

Have you talked to him about having them altered? That would prevent a population explosion, and over time the number of cats might decrease. Lots of local animal societies have low cost spay and neuter programs.

Can you put something out in your yard that the cats would find more attractive to claw? I am thinking maybe a log or two. I don't know if they'd go more for bark on or bark off.

Your neighbor is the kind of person who gives cat owners a bad name.

Declawed outdoor cats have absolutely no defense against dogs or other predators.

And lazy too. We've talked to him and others have too. Tells us its not his problem because his parents own the house. He's in his 40s. His parents don't live in this area but he lives in the house. We have a whole pile of logs at the end of the yard from numerous ice storms. He has logs. They prefer the door jambs. He shows up once in a while to pour a sack of catfood in a big container in his garage and fill a big pan with water, then leaves. That is the level of care he will give and the amount of money he is willing to spend on them. One of these cats bit another neighbor's child and the little boy had to have rabies shots because they couldn't tell which one of the cats it was.

We have no animal shelter in this county beyond a private one owned by a lady who is already overwhelmed with 40 cats she took in after the floods last year.

From the Montgomery County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals., Inc.
P.O. Box 637
Washington Grove, MD 20880-0637

Declawing means far more than leaving your pet defenseless against an attack outdoors.

It means:
* The severing of ligaments and tendons that bring pain.
* The creating of an imbalance that can lead to injury.
* A change in personality and temperament.
* A cat may go berserk, bite and growl.

How important are a cat's claws?
* Have you often wondered at a cat's remarkable grace and agility, its faultless sense of balance?
* To a great extent, this is due to its ingeniously designed retractable claws that allow it to establish footing for walking, running, springing, climbing, or stretching.

What happens to a cat when it is declawed?
* First, it awakens from anesthesia, with its feet throbbing under the bandages; next, it has pain and then it finds it has trouble walking.
* The physical effect of declawing is gradual weakening of the muscles of the legs, shoulders and back. Balance is impaired. Emotionally cats feel defenseless and thus live in a constant state of stress, making them more prone to disease.
* Despite its grace, a cat is not sure-footed. Without the lightning-quick ability to grasp with its claws, it can easily be injured in a fall.
* Deprived of its claws, a cat may turn to its only other defense - its teeth. It is fairly common for a declawed cat to become a biter. They do this out of fear and frustration.

Why do people make their animals suffer the physical and emotional disorientation of declawing?
* "To protect the furniture," is the most common reason.
* "To keep my cat from scratching us when we try to play with him," is another.
* Scratching is a normal characteristic of a healthy cat. It exercises the foot muscles and removed dead tissue from the nails. It also has a soothing, comforting effect that creates a tranquil disposition.

I know of three that would be better off being put down.

level of the two types. But a big difference in the happiness level of the owner. My current cats have claws (being indoor/outdoor kittehs, I want them to be able to protect themselves), and they have long ago torn up my favorite easy chair, despite scratching posts, trimming down their claws, and being allowed outside. They do it in the middle of the night, when we're not there to stop them--you can hear "rip rip rip" from downstairs. It's a good thing I love them, or I'd kick their furry asses.

to declaw a cat is a difficult one, and one not made lightly. I perform them VERY infrequently, and only when I am satisfied that circumstances make it the best choice for the cat and reasonable alternatives are not working.

I have personally owned a few declawed cats (and did 3 of those myself) and found them no more or less psychologically or physically healthy than cats with claws. I DO know that yelling at a cat constantly because it is destroying everything you own does not lead to a healthy cat-owner relationship. I am lucky in that all 3 of my current cats are good about using scratching posts and leaving valuables alone.

I don't want busybody do-gooders and meddlesome fanatics dictating how I practice veterinary medicine, thank you.

I always assumed people just accepted cats clawing things when they decided to get a cat as a kid. Reducing it to a medical issue makes it hard to make up my mind on this issue. Much more interesting post than the everyone is lazy responses.
Thanks for the post.

We have excellent pain meds for postop. Good surgical technique DOES matter. And I put severe age restrictions on it, flat out refusing to do it on cats over 3 years due to increased risk of postop problems. I do about one or two a year anymore, lol, and almost always in cats under 8 months of age, who come through it just fine.

I NEVER declaw hind feet (though I did offer to do it once for medical reasons in a pair of cats with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) because those claws are not retractable, and are not what cats with behavioral clawing issues are using.

My brother, who has a different view of animals that I do, took his cat in to be declawed. The cat died under anesthesia. He then had to explain that to his three young daughters.

poorly chosen anesthetics, or by having idiots monitor the patient without adequate training. I use an extremely safe combination of 4 injectable drugs for the majority of my surgeries (reserving gas for very long procedures) and have a ZERO incidence of sad mishaps over the 18 years I have had my own hospital. My trade off is that the drugs take longer to wear off and the cat is "drunk" longer. Big deal. I would NEVER put rapid recovery for owner or hospital convenience ahead of safety, which is what many places do by choosing certain less safe anesthetic regimens.

There is no excuse for a healthy animal dying under routine anesthesia.

This IS about people meddling in something that is none of their business. Why are veterinarians assumed to be too stupid to make a wise choice for our patients?

Obviously.

I don't know why veterinarians are assumed to be "too stupid," or who might be making that assumption. I didn't make that assumption.

To repeat, I don't think abortion is a good analogy.

At birth, human babies can discriminate; that's what is required to make a choice.

Not, of course, to understand the concept of abortion. But to choose between comfort and pain? Yes.

Definitely before. Probably not in the first trimester.

Discriminate? I'm not sure. They can, at birth, discriminate between voices, between languages, and between people. Very soon, they can distinguish between a favored pacifier over another.

It would make a great post all on its own, outside of this thread about cat de-clawing. ;)

The first 4 years are crucial for creating neural connections. The brain is "hardwired" at that time for what it will do in the future.

That's why kindergarten is not an equal starting line; those neural connections are dependent upon the kind of stimulation the brain received from birth.

That hardwiring can be changed to some degree with an intensive change in stimulus over a very long period of time.

Like when you said:
"At birth, human babies can discriminate; that's what is required to make a choice"

I am not sure though if you are saying they cannot discriminate before birth (they can feel pain as you mentioned) and what is so magical about birth to such an ability (and in the broader sense, does the brain change at all from right before birth to after it).

is that the real difference in the days before or after birth is that the lungs are functioning after.

It's been demonstrated that the fetus can hear while in the womb, and that the baby will remember things heard while in the room; more response to the language spoken by the birth mother, for instance.

When an embryo has enough cells to "feel," or to be AWARE of feeling? I don't know. Could probably find it, though.

I can't imagine yelling at an animal, let alone "constantly," unless he or she is about to harm another animal or human.

I call "recreational barking".