Declawing a cat??!!

I agree that cats should be able to defend themselves by using their own claws. I own two persian cats and even if my male cat loves to scratch my sofa, I didn't thought for once to declaw him. What I did is to buy him a toy for scratching. At first he would still prefer the sofa but after several weeks of training him. He started using the toy. It all falls down in how we train out pets. "I think"

This is pretty common as far as I have seen. They only take out the front claws so the cat stops tearing up all the furniture. They leave the rear claws so the cat can "defend" itself.

We had our cat, Morgana, declawed when she was small for several reasons. One being we have a waterbed that is medically necessary for Hubby and we can't have her popping holes in it, second I'm diabetic and don't heal well so we can't have her scratching me all the time and third we live in an apartment and can't have her clawing up the walls and doors. The declawing wasn't that big of a deal. It took about an hour to do, they kept her overnight for observation, the next day when I picked her up she had bandages on her front paws but only for a day or two, after that she was good as new. She does all the same things any other cat does from running and chasing to jumping and even gripping things like she's kneading them. She doesn't seem to have any discomfort in her paws and will let you play with them. She is also very capable of defending herself with biting. BTW, if you have a cat declawed...THEY MUST BECOME AN INDOOR CAT. Although she can defend herself she wouldn't stand a chance outside and alone. [b]~~AT PEACE WITHIN~~ **STAND STRONG IN YOUR BELIEFS**[/b]