My Cat Stewie Tells His Story of a Botched Declawing

Hi, folks. I am Stewie. I am a nice, loving guy, a little bit on the quiet side but definitely not a scaredy cat. When new people come to our animal shelter, I like to meet them and like to be petted. If you don't know my story, you'd never think that I've been through some rather difficult stuff in my life.

I had to have surgeries done on my paws because of bad declawing. I don't know whether the declawing was poorly done to begin with or it just went wrong because there is always such a risk. I came to the shelter with my claws removed, on all four paws. The volunteers are very caring and attentive here, so they noticed that I was having problems with my feet, so they took a look and saw my bones actually sticking out in some places.

I was taken to the vet and had that surgery. The surgery helped. I have recovered very well. My paws look a little different, but not ugly or deformed or anything like that. You'll have to look real close to notice it. I am walking around the shelter like any other cat, and sometimes climb on top of the cages or on the cat tree.

I am glad that there are good people in this world who care for animals, help animal shelters and make happy endings like mine possible. My story could have ended quite differently, you know. Not only I was badly declawed, I ended up in the street; I had come to the shelter from animal control, so whoever did the declawing obviously threw me out. And if you know anything about cats you know that a declawed cat is totally helpless, unable to defend itself. Such cats should be never let outside. I got lucky to be picked up by animal control. However, that does not always mean the end of your trouble: you have a certain time given by the animal control when they will try to place you at a shelter. If your time is up and all the shelters are full, you're dead. I got lucky again. There was an opening here at the Just Animals Shelter.

As you can probably guess, I am not in favor of cat declawing. Neither are all the volunteers here. It is a bad, bad thing to do to a cat, and there is a painless alternative called Soft Paws. Please check it out if you have a cat or plan to get one.