Posted by Mary on June 21, 2001 at 23:36:05:
In Reply to: Re: Cat nails posted by Patricia on June 21, 2001 at 22:08:34:
You're right, we shouldn't be messing with their reproductive systems. but unfortunately, there are more cats in this world than there are people to take care of them. Something like 15 million cats are put to sleep each year because there are not enough homes for them. By spaying and neutering our pets we are preventing how many more millions of cats being put to sleep each year, or dying horrible deaths out on their own from anti-freeze, sick people, cars, etc.
Spaying and neutering cats helps to prevent bad things from happening to more cats. Declawing does not. It's not even in the same league, declawing is strictly an owner's convenience surgery, it has absolutely nothing to do with helping cats or the cat population. It's a ridiculous argument. Now if you wanted to talk about the fact that so many people have their cat's teeth removed because they bite, and we shouldn't be doing that if we couldn't declaw, then that's a more valid argument. but people don't remove teeth because of biting - I wonder why not? i don't see that as being much different at all.
As far as the guy you know who just spent time in the hospital, well I'm sorry he had to go through that. but why didn't he disinfect the scratch when it happened? Pour peroxide and/or bleach on it? That would be the common sense thing to do, and probaly would have prevented a hospital stay. People can get hurt badly from stepping on a rusty nail as well.... that's just a risk in life.
Out of the hundreds of people that I know who either have cats or are sometimes around cats, not one of them has ever had a serious injury from a cat scratch. (or a bite either, for that matter) it's not a common everyday occurrence, and your friend's accident does not justify chopping off toes in my book, not at all.
Mary
: People have a huge problem with spaying a cat as well, they believe that reproduction is a natural thing to happen. So if I want to spay my cats to prevent the birth of more cats that may wind up be abused or rejected then I shouldn't get a cat because I am changing a natural function of the cat. Or how about having my dog fixed so no more puppies will have to suffer the hip dysplasia he suffers from. God made them to reproduce, maybe he knows better and I should have just left things as they were and let more animals suffer. There are two sides to every story.
: I know a guy that just spent ten days in the hospital because a cat he was tending to scratched his arm. An infection set in that the doctors had a great difficulty getting rid of. After the ten days on "IV" he had to return everyday for the next two weeks to be hooked up to an "IV" until the infection was gone. If he hadn't gone in when he did there was a great possiblity that he could have lost his arm. When the owners got home and found out what happened they had both of their cats declawed. This was done to prevent anymore people from going through what the guy went through. But to go by what you say maybe they should have put their animals down instead of messing with what god made.