Today we wanted to talk about some of my feline patients and feline clients One of the hot topics that we get asked a lot in the veterinary industry for the last few years is declaws on our feline patients. Every doctor will give you a different opinion there’s pros and cons with each of them. Ultimately, I feel if the patient’s going to be euthanized that it’s better to declaw the patient then euthanize the patient or just throw it out on the street because that’s not good quality life of a patient. The cat could run into problems such as getting more diseases. Some of the things you can try before jumping to a declaw are the soft mittens. Sometimes they work, while some cats tolerate a well, some absolutely hate them. Most of them there are hard to do because we put a little bit of glue on them and then we put the soft mitten on and cats do not like it. They chew as they are very creative at getting things off. Another one is just staying on top of your nail trims. Some owners are uncomfortable with the actual trimming of the nail and then you can try on with the drum. Whenever you can try and bribe your cats try and make it so that whenever they do something right they know something good is coming. Another thing you can do are the scratching post. Some patients like vertical scratching post like curtains and the back of couches. There are also horizontal scratchers which some cats who like to scratch on carpet, flat surfaces, and counter tops. Something else you can do is you can try and incorporate some other environmental enrichment things for your cat. Sometimes the cats are doing it because they’re bored, or they are marking their territory. You can get some of their food if they’re food motivated and put it in a little tissue or something and hide it around the house so that they have to go through and hunt for their food. This helps them lose a little bit of weight and distracts and entertains them At Eastwood Animal clinic we do laser declaws. This helps with the pain and inflammation and the cats seem to recover a lot better and have less complications when we do the declaws with the laser. If you have any questions let us know and we’ll do the best, we can to help you out have a great day!