There’s good news today from Massachusetts, which just joined New York and Maryland in banning cat declawing.
The bill, signed Friday by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, prohibits all declawing surgery except for rare circumstances when it’s medically necessary, like cancer in the nail bed.
Veterinarians who violate the law face fines up to $2,500 and professional discipline if they continue the practice.
Despite its name, declawing is the partial amputation of cat toes, equivalent to cutting off human fingertips at the last knuckle.
Declawing changes a cat’s gait, causing the animal pain when it walks, and usually leads to early arthritis. It causes cats to stop using their litter boxes, because the act of standing on and shoveling litter becomes painful for them.
Last but not least, it has a profound psychological impact on felines, making them vulnerable by taking away their primary form of defense. Consequently, cats who are declawed are much more likely to bite than those with intact claws.
Most of all, declawing is cruel and inflicts a lifetime of pain on innocent animals, punishing them for doing what cats naturally do.
Aside from New York, Maryland and Massachusetts, a few dozen cities and counties have banned the procedure, ranging from places like St. Louis, Missouri, to Austin, Texas, and eight cities in California, including Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Pain In The Bud 
My heartfelt thanks to Little Buddy for encouraging you to write this much-needed expose of the horrors associated with declawing. Do you think he’d be interested in mounting a national campaign to change the misleading name of this grisly procedure?
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What do you think it should be called?
What’s a simple way to say it’s a disfigurement, a partial amputation of every toe that leaves the cat in pain for life?
I feel like “disfigurement for the sake of convenience” is a bit wordy and doesn’t really convey the horror, despite boiling it down to the ridiculous reason people have it done to their cats.
But…like you point out, the name is misleading and almost makes it sound like a kitty pedicure, so a new name really should hit people with the cruel reality of it.
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This is awesome news. My motto is, “if you want furniture that looks nice, then don’t get a cat.” I remember watching a My Cat from Hell, and the woman Jackson was dealing with was just awful. She wanted pristine furniture, NO cat toys or towers, and I think she would’ve made the cat go to the bathroom outside if she could. It was insane! This woman is why I have that motto about cats. She eventually came around, but my GOD!
I wish MN was doing something about it. One of my Mom’s cats was declawed when she got him. It didn’t seem to bother him, but we were both disgusted that someone could do that to a cat in this day and age.
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Cats are so good at hiding pain and discomfort, so it’s really difficult for us to tell, which is why that major 2017 study was so important: it examined specific facial expressions and body language to confirm declawed cats were in pain doing things cats normally do. IIRC the paper was published in the Journal of Feline Biology, and confirmed earlier findings using a more rigorous method and a much larger number of cats.
It would be nice if more of the cat “influencer” types added appeals not to declaw to their videos. The tide is turning slowly, but we can help it along with education.
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This is great news but always a downside. One. Person will find a way. Two. Cat might be given up to shelter or thrown out into the streets. My vet says any vet who does this with laws in place should lose business and license. In a perfect world.
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No law is perfect, but I’m glad there are professional penalties for repeat offenders. The prospect of losing their practice and/or their license should be enough of a deterrent.
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That is excellent news! In all the years I’ve had cats, I’ve never had one that clawed the drapes. A couple clawed the furniture a little before they were trained not to. My parents didn’t believe in declawing. I was grown before I knew what a horrible thing it is.
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Good on your parents. And more people should know what you pointed out, that it is absolutely possible to train cats not to scratch.
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I wish they would do that here in Oregon (and everywhere else, of course.) Oregon is a great state for animals, but we seem to have fallen down on this one.
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Your state’s Veterinary Medical Association opposes a declawing ban, as did the VMAs in NY and MD. Interestingly, the MA VMA did not take an official position.
The state VMAs represent the interests of veterinarians who don’t want to give up the income stream they get from declawing, so they’re essentially choosing cash over animals. The VMAs donate to key state lawmakers, and when a declawing ban is introduced, they try to kill it in committe before it even gets to a vote.
That happened for years in NY and MD and looks like it’s the case in Oregon as well:
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2015/06/cat_declawing_ban_critics_say.html
There was another ban bill in Oregon killed in 2024, so they’ve been at this for a while now, and it’s unfortunately relatively easy to convince other lawmakers that bills dealing with animals are petty, not worth the time, and shouldn’t be considered until all other business is finished in the legislative session.
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Thank you for doing my research for me. I think I’ll go write some letters.
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It’s the same story in every state, unfortunately. Those of us who support bans on declawing need to get better organized and do more to help groups like Alley Cat Allies. I really need to do more posts as well.
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Couches exist for the comfort of cats in my world. No declawing, never. When my house-proud Mom got cats, she had whole couch “slip covers” made for the couches. She could take them off for company, or once they became heavily scratched, replace them. Happy to say she never considered declawing, and no vet we ever went to would have done it.
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Precisely. Anyone who can’t handle scratching should not have cats.
Buddy is the king of the couch here, although he likes it when I’m there as his pillow. I would never in a million years harm him to protect an inanimate object.
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I feel blessed that this is illegal in the UK, however there is no doubt there will be scum that practice this”in the backstreets” for money for rubbish people. Bella claws anything she likes (including me) but very very very rarely does apart from her scratchy post – if you give cats something that they like as a scratching area they will use it with a bit of gentle encouragement (a bit like learning to use a litterbox) We used double sided tape on the sofa sides when Bella first came and she stayed away from it but as Big Buddy says an inanimate object like a sofa has no value compared to a sentient beings happiness and health (especially when that sentient being is our furry overlord!!)
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