De Clawing a cat?

I recently got a cat from the shelter that is de-clawed. It bothered me that they didnt' seem to care what I did with her, she was going to be put to sleep anyhow. It bothers me that so many shelters have gone the way of big business and seem to care more about the bottom line then the individual animal but that is a whole other subject. Anyway, I was wondering how many of you have your cats de clawed and wonder what your thoughts are on that subject?

Hi Inga,

It's thankfully illegal in the UK and rightfully so, it's barbaric imo.

I can *just* about see the reasoning in doing it on indoor only cats, but enough of them escape from time to time, and to do that without their main means of defence is asking for a badly hurt cat should they get into a fight outside.

Ian

I am totally against de clawing it's totally unnecessary and barbaric. A cat is meant to have claws it's there defense weapon.
Some shelter's don't care what happens to the animals they just want them out the way. Before I got Mary I was told "she will eat anything and is so loving and gentle". Wrong. She wouldn't eat just anything she was a picky eater and she was far from loving and gentle, she hated men, my OH had several scratches from her, couldn't get near her. She hates being picked up. But now she's a very diffrent cat to back then, she is loving and gentle and she adores my OH, but still doesn't like to be picked up.
Also when we went to view our dog the shelter said they didn't know what to do about him as he had behaviour issues, I think they were releived when we took him.

De-clawing is a huge no no. It's like amputating our fingers down to the first knuckle, extremely painful and totally unnecessary. If someone is against a cat scrathing furniture etc, they shouldn't get a cat. As Ian said it's against the law here and I wish other countries would follow suit and ban the practice too.