My veterinary office is now doing this laser treatment for arthritis. My cat Beep is declawed, the one and only time I did it and would NEVER do it again. She attacked my daughter when we first took her in. Beep was looking a the window, there was another cat in the back yard, Beep was in "pounce mode", Laura, who was 5, walked up to her an lightly touched her back, and Beep nutted out and attacked her...badly. She had two bite marks on her shoulder, and she was scratched down her arm, her chest.....it was awful. Beep did not do it maliciously, she just snapped. She had only been in a few months at the time. We took Laura to an after hours pediatric place, they called AC, they came out and made me quarantine Beep for 10 days...thankfully let us keep her with us, since she was an indoor cat and she had her rabies shots. THe doctor told my husband to get the cat declawed, husband flipped, we did it. I cried afterwards. Beep came home with bandages on her paws, flung one off and blood spattered, I almost fainted. She luckily has had no issues, seemingly, with pain. She is 10 now. She has had a few bouts with peeing outside of the litter box, which could have been from the surgery, but I actually think it was because she was stressed at having another cat in the house.

Anyway, sorry to ramble, but I am a big pusher of NOT declawing now, and I wonder if Beep could benefit from the laser therapy. Something I will look into for her. She seems fine, she jumps up on everything, but you know how cats are, little troopers who never show pain until it's bad.

My MIL keeps pushing to get my daughter's cat declawed....daughter lives with her while in college, and I tell her that it will likely cause litter box accidents. She brushes me off, does not believe it, and then I remind her of her sister, who lives in a very big, very nice house in Atlanta, with 5 cats, and 5 immaculate litter boxes that they pay someone to clean weekly and they scoop multiple times daily....and her cats are all declawed, and someone is always peeing somewhere outside of the box. i think it's because of the declawing, she does not, but I have it in her head now, and my daughter refuses to declaw, and will hopefully move if she gets to the point where she insists.

Sorry to get so off topic....was just thinking of declawing and the problems and effects of it. I'm glad to see success stories like this! I no longer have cable, just netflix and amazon streaming, I so miss this show!!!

 

I saw this episode as well. It might have been available on Animal Planet as a full episode to watch. My heart went out for the poor little kitty and her owner. The owner was like her 5th! Everyone gave up on her and returned to shelter.

When I had no idea about how bad declawing was, I was kind of instrument in my old roommate getting her cats declawed. (I wanted to move to this nicer apartment, but they required all cats to be declawed) I would never suggest it to anyone now. There are alternatives like those plastic nail caps or simple trimming. It's so sad that declawed cats sometimes develop arthritis at an early age. The cat in the show was only 5 yo!

 

Yes, the simple solution is the trimming...

 

Our shelter had a declawed cat named Suzanne who was frequently grumpy and exhibited behavior that one might suspect pain. An x-ray showed bone fragments in one of the front paws, a result of a botched declaw procedure. It would have been very difficult to diagnose had the vet not thought to x-ray her. Once the fragments were removed, she became happy lovey cat and was adopted within a couple months after the surgery.

 

Oh wow, I never would have thought that a possibility Beep is about the grumpiest cat in the world. And she bites too, as a result probably of not having claws, and possibly because my kids thought it was funny to rough play with her when she was younger, since she could not destroy them with her claws. It is something I deeply regret having done to her. Although, I think she would have just been mean anyway, and we sometimes say that the dog would probably not have eyeballs in her head if she still had her claws.....and we might not either. Beep is a little demon.

 

I adopted a poor declawed cat from the shelter - we fell sorry for her. She is a bit shy but her and I have a special bond.