Cats scratch – maybe you realized if you have one. Scratch the sofas, the chairs, the cushions and everything on which they manage to put their nails: it is part of their personality, yet there are many people who cannot stand this behavior, and to avoid damage to things and people cutting their nails. A temporary solution, given the speed to which they regr in, and in fact in some countries of the world, first of all Canada and the United States, the practice of omicectomy is still widespread or declawinga definitive surgical solution to the “problem” of the nails.
Well, a study published on Scientific Reports It now explains in unequivocal terms why the declawing It should be forbidden in all situations, given that condemns cats to a life of chronic pain and neurological damage.
Prohibited in Europe. If you read it from Italy you can rest assured because this cruel practice does not concern us anymore: in our country (and in the rest of Europe) the practice of declawing It has been prohibited by law since 2010, which ratified the indications of the European Convention for the protection of pets.
What is Declawing? In Canada and the United States, on the contrary, the declawing It is still practiced on a regular basis, often coinciding with the animal’s sterilization procedure; And there are still scholars who claim that, however painful, this practice can save the life of cats.
But what does onicectomy consist of? It is not simply a matter of cutting the nails: the cat’s claw grows starting from the fabric of the third phalanx of the paw, and to stop its growth, therefore it is necessary to amputate the whole bone. We are talking about the phalanges of all the fingers, sometimes only in the rear legs, others in all four: in this way, the cat remains without claws for the rest of his life.
A life of pain. The study of the GREPAQ (Groupe de Recherche en Pharmacologie animal du québec) of the University of Montreal has analyzed a colony of cats subjected to declawinganalyzing its response to pain following the operation. The analysis revealed that all the cats to which the nails have been cut have undergone some form of permanent damage: the nerves of the legs are damaged, the animals have a greater sensitivity to the pain and also make more effort to move.
Life consequences. The fact of having to live without a piece of paw, then, sends the nervous system of cats in crisis, who from an early age must live with an unnatural situation: they therefore tend to develop a form of chronic fatigue that affects the well -being for the rest of life.
In short, “cutting the nails” to cats condemns them to a life of suffering, and the practice of declawing It should be banned without if and without but.
