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Can’t seem to train your cat to not claw furniture, but don’t want to declaw him? It seems that there may be a solution finally. I came across an article about a new product that looks like it could be a great alternative.

First of all, for those of you who aren’t aware, declawing a cat is equivalent to having your toes and fingers all amputated at the last joint.  We use our fingers a lot.  Imagine not having them in tact and how that would effect our daily lives.  To make matters worse, cats depend on their claws for defense.  It’s been found that declawed cats often become chronic biters, (understandably!) and develop serious behavioural problems, sometimes becoming mean.

In the recent article Soft Paws an alternative to declawing cats by Jennifer Annis, several veterinarians were interviewed.  One Dr. Jennifer Dixon, refuses to declaw cats.  Beranda Trammell, a veterinarian technician at Dixon’s hospital, said of Dixon,

“She doesn’t declaw because of the pain to the cat. It’s inhumane,” Trammell said. “It also has made nonaggresive cats aggressive.”

Trammell said other complications from declawing can include excessive bleeding (and possibly bleeding to death); nails growing back, usually improperly; and nerve damage to the limb.

Dixon instead recommends various training methods, such as double-sided tape on the furniture, providing scratching posts, and if those don’t work, using the product Soft Paws.  Soft Paws are colorful vinyl caps, which are put on the cat’s claws.

The article continues with pro’s and con’s to the using the product, such as the necessity to reapply the caps every 4-6 weeks.  There are also some interesting insights provided by the Greenwood Humane Society’s executive director, Karen Pettay:

…she often heard of declawed cats frequently urinating in inappropriate locations after the surgery, which didn’t make sense to the director at first. Then she said she read that the reason cats begin to do so is because, immediately after getting their claws removed, it’s painful for them to scratch litter.

“So, they start to associate the litter box with pain and give it up entirely,” Pettay said.

Some cats … begin to exhibit extremely anti-social behavior, causing owners to give them up.

“Even when they don’t have any claws, they swat at you. … Some of them even turn to biting you,” said Jessica Kelly, who works at the Humane Society.

Read the original article.

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