Letters to the Editor: If declawing cats is wrong, then what about sterilizing them?

To the editor: What is barbaric concerning domestic animal practices? (“It’s time to scratch gruesome cat declawing surgery in California,” editorial, June 17)

Docking the tails of puppies of certain breeds with no anesthesia to maintain the breed’s conformation? Surgically cutting the ears of young puppies for the same reason?

Requiring dogs, cats and other domestic pets to be surgically neutered or spayed?

Confining cats to the indoors when they were bred to roam the outdoors in order to prolong and enhance their lives?

Deciding to have an adoptive cat’s front claws surgically removed so that it does not damage the only things on which it can sharpen its claws?

The proponents of Assembly Bill 2606 might want to consider the number of cats’ lives that could be saved if an adoptive owner honestly said that the adoption depended on the removal of the cat’s front claws by a responsible and trained veterinarian, and that the cat would spend its long and happy life indoors. Mine all did.

Gail McClain, Laguna Beach

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To the editor: In the 1960s, we thought nothing of declawing our cats, completely ignorant of the long-lasting effects of the procedure — nor did our vets educate us or hesitate to do it. I wish I’d known then what I know now.

The people who had the cat I now have inexplicably declawed all four paws. I cringe at the thought of her coming home from that procedure.

She now has constant discomfort, since it was discovered that there are remaining fragments in her paws. She chews at them to the point of making them bleed and frequently holds up one front paw or the other when she sits.

I pray that Assembly Bill 2606 becomes law.

Lynne Baker, Sherman Oaks

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To the editor: How barbaric might this declawing ban be to the billions of other animals that cats catch and then play with, as they slowly torture them to death with the very claws you wish our government to protect, before bringing the bodies home to display to their owners?

Domesticated cats are the biggest killers of birds we have. Some estimates are that cats kill between 1.3 billion and 4 billion birds per year in the United States.

In the interests of wildlife protection, perhaps if we wish to enlist our micromanaging state Legislature, we should advocate them banning cats or, at the very least, mandating that all cats be declawed as kittens.

Dallas Weaver, Huntington Beach