A Child

Imagine, if you would, you're a small child, and your parents decided they'd had enough. You color on the walls, play with your food at every opportunity, and even do some painful hair pulling when you're angry. They know they could teach you proper manners if they put the time and effort into it, but they're simply too busy, and let's be honest, that's a lot of work for an energy filled kid like you. So they take the easy route; they take you to the doctor, put you under some general anesthesia and they cut off a finger, right at the first knuckle. But they don't stop there. They decide to cut off all your fingers in such a way, leaving you with ten little nubs sticking out from your palms. Problem solved, no more stick figures on the bathroom wall.

You awaken from your troubled slumber in complete dismay; you're in horrible pain, and are horrified and confused as to what has just happened. You have a difficult time picking up food to feed yourself, and the pain of trying to button your pants after going to the bathroom is so horrid you avoid it as much as possible. Playing with your little mini piano and building sand castles a the beach are things of the past, at least for a great while until the pain subsides and they've healed, but they are not the only things you struggle with. Drawing, putting on clothes, even changing the channel and playing video games, all the normal activities you once did now present a challenge for losing such small bits of your hand. You experience the pain of phantom limbs, something as many as half the people who've had a body part amputated experience; a painful burning sensation or an itchiness that refuses to go away, distracting you and keeping you up at all hours of the night. One of the phalanges was not amputated correctly, resulting in painful regrowth which you had to get surgery on again, extending your healing time and amount of pain you must endure. You become distant and reclusive, wallowing in the loss of what you once took for granted.

As a child, you are hurt your parents would put you through such an experience; they are there to protect you, to love you and nurture you, and you trusted them to do that. They betrayed that trust, for their own convenience.


In our society today, amputation is regarded as either barbaric torture (as a form of punishment for stealing in many countries) or as a desperate medical procedure when a limb has become too damaged or diseased to keep. No one, other than the ones we would consider completely mental, would dare think of doing this type of procedure to a child to convenience ourselves, and would never do it except in the most dire of circumstances.

So why do so many in the United States continue to do this to their innocent feline friends? They either care more about their couches and carpets than the physical and mental health of their cats, or they are simply uneducated, not realizing declawing removes an important part of the cats foot. The only difference between cats and this story is that cats have it worse off. They don't receive as good of pain medication as a human would, and as many already know, their claws are their first line of defense. Yes, they can still catch food in most cases, and use their teeth to fend off predators. But cats walk mainly on their toes; by declawing them, they are forced to walk around on stumps for the entire healing process, and the rest of their lives, though you wouldn't know the pain they are going through. Cats are too manly; they don't show their pain.

My kitty Olivia.

It is a sad fate for such innocent and lovely creatures. It truly makes my heart break when I hear of people getting their pets declawed. If only they knew what it was really like. A couch or a bit of carpet can be replaced for a price. The life and happiness of a living creature cannot.

Shoulder cat.