Understanding Declawing Declawing involves 10 separate, painful amputations of the third digit up to the last joint of each toe. The cat's claw is not a nail as is a human fingernail, it is part of the last bone in the cat's toe. To remove the claw, the bone, nerve, ligament and tendon must all be amputated. Complications of this amputation can be excruciating pain, damage to the radial nerve, hemorrhage, bone chips that prevent healing, painful regrowth of deformed claw inside of the paw, and chronic back and joint pain as shoulder, leg and back muscles weaken. Many cats also suffer a loss of balance since they can no longer achieve a secure foothold on their stumps.
Some cats are so shocked by declawing that their personalities change.
Others that can no longer mark with their claws, they mark with urine instead. Many declawed cats become so traumatized by this painful mutilation that they end up spending their maladjusted lives perched on top of doors and refrigerators, out of reach of real and imaginary predators against whom they no longer have any adequate defense. A cat relies on its claws as its primary means of defense. Removing the claws makes a cat feel defenseless and it can either become very defensive and resort to biting, or withdrawn and paranoid. They not only lose their grip, but also their grip on reality, seeming unable to concentrate on much beyond the loss of their claws, their vulnerability and confusion as to what has happened to them.