declawing

I am trying to find out if there is an alternative to declawing my cat. I have a 2 year old son who loves our cat and our dog. All three of them play together. The other day the three of them were in a pile on the floor and our cat, Juliet, scratched my son's ear, enough to make him bleed. Juliet also bit his ear. It was swelling so fast and bleeding, so I rushed him to the doctor. The doctor said that cats carry a deadly disease in their claws and I needed to be very cautious when they play together. So, my problem is that I do not want to get rid of my cat and I have heard awful things about declawing. My son's health is my first priority. I can prevent Juliet from hurting him by having her declawed. So my question is, can I protect my son's health and not hurt Juliet?

Yes you can protect your son's health. Monitor the interaction between your
child and the animals and teach him how to behave around them. The child
didn't know any better but was apparently hurting the cat while wrestling
and Juliet protected herself because nobody else would. It's not the cat's
fault that your son got hurt but yours. Small children should NEVER be left
unattended around animals. They don't realize when they are hurting the
animal and you can't expect your pets not to defend themselves.

Sometimes even normal interaction with a cat can result in a minor scratch.
To help avoid them you can take your cat to a groomer and have soft paws
applied or do it yourself at home. They are soft rubber caps that fit over
your cat's claws. http://www.softpaws.com/

I can't believe you even considered declawing the cat. Please re-home it
first.

W



"Penny" wrote in message
...

I am trying to find out if there is an alternative to declawing my cat.
I have a 2 year old son who loves our cat and our dog. All three of
them play together. The other day the three of them were in a pile on
the floor and our cat, Juliet, scratched my son's ear, enough to make
him bleed. Juliet also bit his ear. It was swelling so fast and
bleeding, so I rushed him to the doctor. The doctor said that cats
carry a deadly disease in their claws and I needed to be very cautious
when they play together. So, my problem is that I do not want to get
rid of my cat and I have heard awful things about declawing. My son's
health is my first priority. I can prevent Juliet from hurting him by
having her declawed. So my question is, can I protect my son's health
and not hurt Juliet?




--
Penny

"Penny" wrote in message
...

I am trying to find out if there is an alternative to declawing my cat.
I have a 2 year old son who loves our cat and our dog. All three of
them play together. The other day the three of them were in a pile on
the floor and our cat, Juliet, scratched my son's ear, enough to make
him bleed. Juliet also bit his ear. It was swelling so fast and
bleeding, so I rushed him to the doctor. The doctor said that cats
carry a deadly disease in their claws and I needed to be very cautious
when they play together. So, my problem is that I do not want to get
rid of my cat and I have heard awful things about declawing. My son's
health is my first priority. I can prevent Juliet from hurting him by
having her declawed. So my question is, can I protect my son's health
and not hurt Juliet?

Yes, and very easily. Get these:

http://tinyurl.com/2plh69


for $5, and when you have a friend with you, one of you roll kitty up
in an old towel with one paw sticking out and just snip the tips of
kitty's claws. Once a month will do it.

Also, any time kitty puts her claws out when playing clap and
say "NO" loudly.

Don't play with her with your hands, use a feather-on-a-string
kind of thing.

Your doctor, by the way, was wildly exaggerating.

Your son will learn so much from interacting with kitty every day.
You can teach him a lifetime of goodness via Juliet.

Don't teach him it is okay to mutilate an animal for your
convenience.

(Plus, I declawed my first cat and she wound up becoming a
biter--and she never trusted me after that. It changed everything.)

How about some pics of Julia?



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

on Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:26:54 GMT, "Wendy" wrote:

Yes you can protect your son's health. Monitor the interaction between
your child and the animals and teach him how to behave around them.
The child didn't know any better but was apparently hurting the cat
while wrestling and Juliet protected herself because nobody else
would. It's not the cat's fault that your son got hurt but yours.
Small children should NEVER be left unattended around animals. They
don't realize when they are hurting the animal and you can't expect
your pets not to defend themselves.

Sometimes even normal interaction with a cat can result in a minor
scratch. To help avoid them you can take your cat to a groomer and
have soft paws applied or do it yourself at home. They are soft rubber
caps that fit over your cat's claws. http://www.softpaws.com/

I can't believe you even considered declawing the cat. Please re-home
it first.

I agree 100% with everything here.

--
Lynne

on Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:34:09 GMT, Lynne
wrote:

I agree 100% with everything here.

I should also add that I had cats before I had babies and declawing them
never crossed my mind. We never had problems because I always supervised
my children.

--
Lynne

"Wendy" wrote in message
. ..
Yes you can protect your son's health. Monitor the interaction between
your child and the animals and teach him how to behave around them. The
child didn't know any better but was apparently hurting the cat while
wrestling and Juliet protected herself because nobody else would. It's not
the cat's fault that your son got hurt but yours. Small children should
NEVER be left unattended around animals. They don't realize when they are
hurting the animal and you can't expect your pets not to defend
themselves.

Sometimes even normal interaction with a cat can result in a minor
scratch. To help avoid them you can take your cat to a groomer and have
soft paws applied or do it yourself at home. They are soft rubber caps
that fit over your cat's claws. http://www.softpaws.com/

I can't believe you even considered declawing the cat. Please re-home it
first.
----------------
I can vouch for Softpaws. They worked great for my cat. When my son was
beginning to crawl, he crawled over to Alex who was perched on a chair. A
swipe of the paw, and my son had a scratch on his face. The way somebody
explained this to me was as follows: (I don't know if this is true or not,
but it sounded plausible). The cat sees another creature who is about his
size and on all fours (just like the cat), but the cat knows the creature is
not his kind, and the child is staring at the cat, eyeball to eyeball, so
the cat lets the child know who's in charge. I was told that once my son
could walk, I would not have this problem, and it was absolutely true. In
the meantime, we clipped Alex's claws and got Softpaws. They are soft
flexible rubber caps that are glued over the cats claws. They generally
don't fall off and only need to be replaced when the cat's claws grow out.
They worked great, and we didn't need to use them for very long.

FTR, I also agree 100% that children don't have any business wrestling with
animals. Children need to be taught how to behave around animals. When Daisy
first arrived as a foster (she is now one of my permanent cats), my son (who
was about 8 years old by then) came up to me crying, saying that Daisy had
scratched his face. I told him that if she scratched his face, he must have
been in her face, and that he had only himself to blame. Animals generally
need to be protected from children, not the other way around. You can't
fault an animal for defending himself/herself.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.

I agree with the advice that's been given here. If Softpaws don't work
for you, keeping Juliet's claws trimmed regularly will help. (Your vet
can show you how far to clip.)

The doctor was probably referring to something called "cat scratch
disease:" http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/inf...t_scratch.html
I understand this disease is relatively rare. It's a cat bite that's
more of a danger, as a cat's mouth naturally harbors lots of bacteria.
Always wash a scratch or bite with soap and water and apply Neosporin,
and keep a close eye on the wounds.

Penny" wrote in message
...

I am trying to find out if there is an alternative to declawing my cat.
I have a 2 year old son who loves our cat and our dog. All three of
them play together. The other day the three of them were in a pile on
the floor and our cat, Juliet, scratched my son's ear, enough to make
him bleed. Juliet also bit his ear. It was swelling so fast and
bleeding, so I rushed him to the doctor. The doctor said that cats
carry a deadly disease in their claws and I needed to be very cautious
when they play together. So, my problem is that I do not want to get
rid of my cat and I have heard awful things about declawing. My son's
health is my first priority. I can prevent Juliet from hurting him by
having her declawed. So my question is, can I protect my son's health
and not hurt Juliet?

Yes, and very easily. Get these:

http://tinyurl.com/2plh69


for $5, and when you have a friend with you, one of you roll kitty up
in an old towel with one paw sticking out and just snip the tips of
kitty's claws. Once a month will do it.

Also, any time kitty puts her claws out when playing clap and
say "NO" loudly.

Don't play with her with your hands, use a feather-on-a-string
kind of thing.

Your doctor, by the way, was wildly exaggerating.

Your son will learn so much from interacting with kitty every day.
You can teach him a lifetime of goodness via Juliet.

Don't teach him it is okay to mutilate an animal for your
convenience.

(Plus, I declawed my first cat and she wound up becoming a
biter--and she never trusted me after that. It changed everything.)

How about some pics of Julia?




--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On 2 Feb, 16:58, Penny wrote:
I am trying to find out if there is an alternative to declawing my cat.
I have a 2 year old son who loves our cat and our dog. All three of
them play together. The other day the three of them were in a pile on
the floor and our cat, Juliet, scratched my son's ear, enough to make
him bleed. Juliet also bit his ear. It was swelling so fast and
bleeding, so I rushed him to the doctor. The doctor said that cats
carry a deadly disease in their claws and I needed to be very cautious
when they play together. So, my problem is that I do not want to get
rid of my cat and I have heard awful things about declawing. My son's
health is my first priority. I can prevent Juliet from hurting him by
having her declawed. So my question is, can I protect my son's health
and not hurt Juliet?

--
i agree with everything said by the other posters about not leaving
little kids with animals, kids as young as 2 don't really understand
that a cat is not a plaything and is not a toy to be pulled about and
annoyed, so either you need to be there to supervise him with her and
stop him annoying her OR just let him learn the hard way that if he
does pull her about she will scratch him when he gets too rough with
her and scares her.

Remember that to your cat your son is a huge animal much bigger than
herself, very threatening by his size, and he probably doesnt' know
his own strength or that other animals/people can feel pain and upset
just like he can (no I am not saying he is thick or a retard or
anything, simple child psychology states that toddlers do not develop
a theory of mind, which is what is required to feel empathy for others
suffering, until the age of 4 years, if at all). Therefore little
lessons like 'when you pull the cats tail she will turn around and
scratch you' are very valuable and probably more so to a small child
who learns more by experience than from being told. Through these
little lessons he will earn respect for your beautiful cat and to be
gentle with her and that she is a princess who deserves respect and to
be worshipped (as all cats do of course).

and don't worry about her scratching your son, this doctor was
scaremongering, throughout my life I have been scratched and bitten by
many dogs, cats, even a terrapin at one point, stung by bees, wasps,
mosquitoes, etc. All it has done is made me more hardy, and in my
former years gave me a respect for animals that they are not toys but
free thinking creatures who deserve to not have their personal space
invaded by some marauding child (even if said child just wanted to
cuddle the big doggy in the park). The likelihood that your son has
caught somethign from a simple cat scratch is extremely low, don't
worry about it, if anything it will have exposed him to some good old
fashioned germs and built up his immune system, something which isn't
happening with a lot of kids these days who are being wrapped up in
cotton woll too much by their molly-coddling parents.

Please remember that Juliet would not scratch anyone out of spite or
just to be mean or malicious, cats only scratch or bite to try to
defend themselves when they are scared or feel threatened. Your son
may not have been doing anything he thought was threatening but again
think about how much bigger he is than her and how he must appear to
her and how his behaviour which may only be 'playing' in his mind may
feel like a threat from a larger animal to her.

lastly DO NOT GET YOUR CAT DECLAWED save your money and your cat from
a lifetime of misery and just teach your son to leave the cat alone
and back off when she displays certain 'warning signals' that she has
had enough of his 'play' eg tail swishing, ears flat back, growling.
It will much better for everyone in the long term.

cheers Bookie

Penny wrote:
I am trying to find out if there is an alternative to declawing my cat.
I have a 2 year old son who loves our cat and our dog. All three of
them play together. The other day the three of them were in a pile on
the floor and our cat, Juliet, scratched my son's ear, enough to make
him bleed. Juliet also bit his ear. It was swelling so fast and
bleeding, so I rushed him to the doctor. The doctor said that cats
carry a deadly disease in their claws and I needed to be very cautious
when they play together. So, my problem is that I do not want to get
rid of my cat and I have heard awful things about declawing. My son's
health is my first priority. I can prevent Juliet from hurting him by
having her declawed. So my question is, can I protect my son's health
and not hurt Juliet?

WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!
WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!
WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!
WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!
WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!
WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!WHACK!

That's my head on my desk.

It's been fun guys, it really has. I simply cannot take any more of
these completely assinine posts. Have a good life - I love you all.
You know where to find me, if you want to.
xoxo,
-L.