As an owner of 6 cats (only 2 aggressive) and even more expensive furniture I know exactly how you feel. I wanted my cat declawed (onychectomy), but I heard so many awful things that turned me to so many confusing places. Through my successful experience I outlined everything here to save you the time and get straight to the answers. So lets begin, well first of all we can right off the bat say the declawing is a painful procedure and should be looked at as a last resort to control the cat's (normal) behavior to scratch. The purpose of the actual cat scratching is to remove old, worn fragments of nails. This piece will help you to eliminate the root cause of the cat's behavior to scratch furniture and/or people, and will save you time and money. money.
* scratching is a natural cat behavior
This is a natural cat behavior and there are many ways and methods to turn cats away from the furniture and closer to more "scratch-friendly" areas, which we will discuss later in this informative piece. To find the solution we first have to find out and personalize a plan for your specific cat (what works for one cat many not always work for another) and we will talk about this more very soon. We can also say that we would take away the cat's primary means of defense, which for some cats biting takes over being the secondary defense (rarely happens). We can also say for certain the best age to declaw a cat is between 3-5 months while it is still younger. This is because at this age the recovery period would be the shortest and it would be safest around the time they are neutered or spayed.
* cat declawing is a critical decision to make
Can a cat's behavior change after the declaw? Numerous scientific studies have been unable to document any behavior changes post-declaw. However a lot of research also points out a lot of this depends on the cat's treatment long before the actual declawing. We can also point out declawing does not affect the cat's walking ability or balance after the recovery, but be sure your dedicated to being able to keep your cat indoors due to the removal of it's primary defense. Although some cats can survive outside there have been numerous reports of cats being injured outdoors due to not being able to defend themselves well enough with their teeth. Let's also say that if the cat has an infection it cannot spread it around.
So lets move to the more important part, how do I fix my cat's behavior of scratching at furniture and/or people. There are a vast number of alternatives of declawing. Although some are more expensive and convenient then others we will list them all here then later in detail explain which are more expensive and convenient. Also as I said before some cats work better with some alternatives. Some alternatives to really look into are scratching posts, cardboard scratchers, cat tree construction, cat-friendly end tables and furniture, soft paws, nail trimming, training cats, and simply more exercise. There are many ways to improve the chances of each of these alternatives to work. For scratching posts, cardboard scratchers, cat trees, and cat-friendly furniture, it is recommended to sprinkle catnip on these areas to make them more attractive and to add unfriendly scratching material on the furniture usually scratched. Also remember to keep these items close to the family active areas, and to feed and play beside them so the cats enjoy using them, while slowly moving them to the areas where the cat would be alone most of the time.
For more solutions and information please browse around our website.
http://www.declawing-cat.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment