Should You Declaw Your Persian Cat?

You love your Persian – but you love your furnishing, drapes, and carpeting as well. Unfortunately, Persians, as well as other cat breeds are notorious for absolutely ruining furnishing, drapes, and carpet, and even walls and baseboards because they use these objects as scratching posts.

First, if your Persian is making a mess of the furnishings in your home, you really can’t blame the cat. He’s just doing what comes naturally to him – and because you haven’t provided any other alternatives that are suitable, you have only yourself to blame. Alternatives must be provided, because you are not going to stop the cat from scratching when the need arises.

At one point, the answer was to declaw the cat. Today, you will be hard pressed to find a veterinarian who is willing to perform this surgery on your cat. More and more, the practice is being deemed as cruel, because research has shown that declawing a cat is the equivalent of cutting off a humans fingers at the first joint.

In many countries, it is now illegal to declaw a cat, and in many others, it is just a matter of time before this is the case. Countries that frown upon declawing cats, and which may have passed laws against declawing cats include Scotland, Brazil, Wales, New Zealand, Japan, Germany, Yugoslavia, France, Australia, Italy, England, Austria, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, Netherlands, and Portugal.

In the United States and Canada, the practice of declawing cats is not yet illegal, but it is being frowned upon more and more. In fact, if a cat is declawed, he will be automatically disqualified from most sanctioned cat shows.

When a cat is declawed, more than his toenail is being removed. In fact, this is actually an amputation of the last joint of the cat’s toe. No matter how old or young the cat is, the animal experiences a great deal of pain following the surgery – for a long period of time. Often, this changes the personality of the cat – forever.


Today, there are numerous alternatives to declawing. Cats can be trained to use alternative scratching sources, such as scratching posts. You can also use caps that cover the cat’s nails. These caps stay in place for about three months, and are becoming better and better as time goes on. Today, you can even purchase these nail caps in a multitude of colors. You can also trim the cat’s nails, which will minimize the damage that they can do to your furniture.