Declawing cats causes them lifelong pain. It’s time to ban the practice

Because there is a lack of rigorous long-term studies on declawing cats, the consequences of this practice have been long underestimated. Yet research we conducted in Québec shows that declawing causes irreversible nerve damage and chronic suffering. This mutilation must be banned, everywhere and forever.

I became interested in animal pain very early in my career. During my training in anesthesia and pain management, I was struck by how much the suffering of declawed cats was trivialized. I carried my indignation over this issue into my research career, and it’s now shaped my work for more than 20 years.

With my colleagues at the Groupe de recherche en pharmacologie animale du Québec (Quebec Animal Pharmacology Research Group, GREPAQ) at Université de Montréal, we had unique access to a colony of cats with natural osteoarthritis, a common and painful condition in animals that worsens with age.

We developed and validated some specialized, non-invasive tools that could measure pain and nerve function in cats, ranging from veterinary clinical tests to gait analysis, brain imaging and nerve conduction studies.

This allowed us to distinguish the pain caused by osteoarthritis from the additional suffering caused by declawing. Our key objective was to isolate the pain of osteoarthritis in order to better understand the specific effects of declawing.

Our findings, published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, were striking: we discovered that declawing causes long-term nerve damage, increased sensitivity to pain, and exacerbated mobility issues, particularly in heavier cats. These animals’ nervous systems are overloaded from an early age and eventually become exhausted, which leads to chronic fatigue, hypersensitivity and decreased well-being.

In other words, declawing cats condemns them to a life of pain.

An amputation, not a nail trim

Declawing does not mean simply cutting the claws. It involves amputating the last phalanx of each toe, usually on the front paws, sometimes on all four paws. The operation is performed using a scalpel blade, a surgical laser, or sterilized claw clippers.

Veterinary science has compared techniques, analgesic protocols and complications, but the prevailing view has always been the same: declawing is controversial, but some still argue that it saves animals.

Even the American Veterinary Medical Association concluded in 2022, “There is conflicting scientific evidence about the implications of declawing.”

As a scientist, I knew that this “conflicting” evidence actually reflected a gap in the research since there had never been a rigorous, long-term study of the chronic pain caused by declawing.

Why this research was necessary

I obtained my Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine in Lyon, France, in 1992, the same year that the European Union proclaimed a ban on declawing cats. When I arrived in North America to pursue my specialty in anesthesia and pain management, I was shocked to see how common the practice still was. Being passionate about animal welfare, I have never seen this practice as anything other than mutilation for the sake of pet owners’ convenience.

I still remember reading a letter to the editor in 2006, in which Dr. Michael W. Fox, an expert in ethology and animal behaviour, wrote:

“Caring and responsible cat owners teach their cats to use scratching posts… rather than resorting to routine declawing, which is mutilation for convenience.”

But other veterinarians rejected this view, arguing that the pain was “trivial” compared to other procedures and justifying declawing with a utilitarian view: the practice is acceptable if it prevents owners from abandoning their cats.

And so, the practice remained widespread in the United States and some Canadian provinces, despite being banned in Québec in 2024. In fact, it is estimated that in 2025, some 25 million cats in North America will be declawed.

An unequivocal scientific finding

So our work consisted of comparing a cohort of healthy cats with a cohort of cats with arthritis and a cohort of cats with arthritis who had been declawed. It took more than a decade to gather a sufficient number of animals that had all undergone the same non-invasive assessments.

But the wait was worth it. The evidence is clear. Cats with osteoarthritis are more sensitive to touch, and this is worse in cats that have also been declawed. Their nervous system becomes overwhelmed and develops neurosensitization, which gets worse over time until it’s exhausted. Finally, there are biomechanical effects on their gait, and heavier cats pay the highest price.

These impairments in declawed cats are accompanied by altered behaviour: reluctance to jump, neglect of the litter box due to pain in the paws, withdrawal reactions to the touch of fingers and even unusual aggression.

On these aspects, our work led by Dr. Aude Castel, a veterinary neurologist, sheds new light on the issue: electrophysiological tests reveal direct nerve damage. These alterations, which may be irreversible, confirm the neurosensitization observed: a failing and exhausted nervous system, which corresponds to the behavioural disorders described.

Awareness and behavioural education

As veterinarians, our mission is to protect animal welfare, but continuing to perform declawing means we are failing in our mission. The evidence is clear now: declawing is not routine surgery but, rather, an ethically unacceptable practice with serious and lasting consequences.

In light of this evidence, veterinarians must actively educate cat owners about the serious long-term consequences of declawing, and advocate for alternative strategies such as behavioural training, nail trimming and the use of scratching posts. Other procedures, such as tenotomy (cutting the flexor tendons of the claws), should be avoided as they disrupt the cat’s natural behaviour and can cause chronic pain similar to that of declawing.

In addition, regulatory bodies such as the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association should incorporate scientific data into their policy decisions to protect the welfare of felines.

It is time to ban declawing everywhere, especially in North America.