Latest / The Animal Advocate / Ending Cat Declawing: Which States Are Enacting Bans in 2025?

Transcript

Ending Cat Declawing: Which States Are Enacting Bans in 2025? · The Animal Advocate

• 0:01
  So, cat people, have you ever worried about your cat's claws
• 0:05
  destroying your furniture? Some people turn to cat
• 0:08
  declawing to deal with that issue, thinking it's a simple procedure,
• 0:12
  maybe more than a manicure, but certainly not major surgery.
• 0:16
  And then the cat comes home, and everything seems fine. But over
• 0:20
  the next few weeks, everything changes. The cat who
• 0:24
  always used the litter box starts peeing on the carpet.
• 0:27
  The gentle cat who never bit anyone becomes aggressive. Or
• 0:31
  the playful climber suddenly walks like every step hurts.
• 0:36
  What the owner didn't realize is that declawing isn't just removing
• 0:40
  claws. It's actually amputating the last
• 0:43
  bone of each toe. Yikes. Should we be
• 0:47
  allowing this? Let's talk about it.
• 0:53
  Welcome to the Animal Advocate, where we arm animal
• 0:57
  lovers with the information and inspiration you need to become
• 1:00
  effective advocates. I'm your host, Penny Ellison,
• 1:04
  and I've taught animal law and advocacy at the University of Pennsylvania
• 1:08
  since 2006. If you've ever thought
• 1:11
  someone should do something about that, I'm here to guide you
• 1:15
  on your journey to being that someone. You can
• 1:19
  find us on the web@animaladvocacyacademy.com
• 1:23
  and that's where you'll find show notes and resources and
• 1:27
  and send us your comments on episodes and ideas for topics you'd like
• 1:31
  to hear on future shows. So onto today's
• 1:34
  topic.
• 1:41
  Today, we're talking about cat declawing. After seven
• 1:45
  decades of this being considered normal and routine, things
• 1:49
  are finally changing for cats. Seven states of
• 1:53
  Bandit. And my home state, Pennsylvania, have has a bill moving right
• 1:56
  now. So let's talk about what declawing really is,
• 2:00
  why it matters, and how you can help end it in your
• 2:04
  state. So first, what does
• 2:07
  declawing actually mean? The term itself is pretty
• 2:11
  misleading. Most people imagine that it's no big deal. The
• 2:14
  reality? Veterinarians amputate, as I said, the
• 2:18
  entire last bone of each toe, not just the claw,
• 2:22
  but bone, tendons, ligaments, and nerves.
• 2:27
  So why is such an extreme procedure required just to get rid of the claw?
• 2:31
  Well, because a cat's claw grows from deep inside that bone.
• 2:36
  So to prevent regrowth, you have to remove the bone itself.
• 2:41
  If you do this to a human hand, you'd be cutting off each finger
• 2:45
  at the last knuckle. Typically, vets do that on
• 2:49
  all 10 front toes, though some cats are declawed on all four
• 2:53
  paws. So how did we get here?
• 2:56
  Declawing became standard American practice in the
• 2:59
  1950s as a solution for furniture scratching.
• 3:03
  By the 1990s, it was so Routine that surveys showed it was
• 3:07
  packaged with spaying and neutering. In over 20% of cases.
• 3:11
  A major surgical elective amputation
• 3:15
  became standard kitten care with zero scientific
• 3:19
  study of long term impacts. So what happens
• 3:22
  to cats when they get declawed? Well, the research is pretty
• 3:26
  troubling. Medical complication rates range from
• 3:30
  24 to 80%, depending on technique used.
• 3:33
  These complications include hemorrhages, infections,
• 3:37
  nerve damage, chronic pain, bone spurs,
• 3:41
  and sometimes claws attempting to regrow under the skin, which
• 3:45
  is really painful. And unlike UTs,
• 3:48
  cats walk on their toes, not their foot pads.
• 3:52
  So every single step involves bearing weight on
• 3:55
  amputation sites. So when fragments are left behind
• 3:59
  or tissue doesn't heal right, it's like walking with a pebble in
• 4:03
  your shoe forever. A 2018
• 4:07
  study found declawed cats were three times more likely to have
• 4:10
  back pain because shortened limbs and altered gait forced
• 4:14
  them to shift weight differently. Another study in
• 4:18
  2025 found they show signs of long term
• 4:22
  neuroplastic pain sensitization. So they have pain
• 4:26
  all the time. And the behavior changes.
• 4:30
  When cats lose their main defense mechanism, their claws,
• 4:34
  many turn to their backup, their teeth. Declawed
• 4:37
  cats are far more likely to bite. Others develop litter
• 4:41
  box aversion because scratching in litter hurts their paws.
• 4:45
  Some become withdrawn or even aggressive.
• 4:49
  Now, the CDC doesn't recommend declawing, even for
• 4:53
  immunocompromised people who might be worried about
• 4:56
  getting infections. Why? Because cat bites
• 5:00
  are far more dangerous than scratches. By increasing
• 5:04
  biting behavior, declawing actually increases health
• 5:08
  risks to humans. So what does the
• 5:11
  veterinary community say about all this? And this matters because veterinary
• 5:15
  organizations have historically lobbied hard against declawing
• 5:19
  bans. But the good news is, positions are starting to
• 5:22
  shift. The abma, the American Veterinary
• 5:26
  Medical association, the largest professional group of veterinarians,
• 5:30
  now strongly discourages elective declawing.
• 5:34
  The American association of Feline Practitioners strongly
• 5:37
  opposes it. And the American Animal hospital association.
• 5:41
  The AAHA revised its 2025
• 5:45
  standards to require accredited practices to stop doing
• 5:49
  non therapeutic declawing. Yet some state veterinary
• 5:53
  associations still fight bans. There's a financial
• 5:56
  dimension here, of course. Declawing is lucrative. And when
• 6:00
  state legislators consider bans, they face organized
• 6:04
  resistance, sometimes from groups arguing that medical decisions should be
• 6:08
  left to a vet's professional judgment. So let's talk about the law now
• 6:12
  for advocates. Where has it been banned? Well, seven
• 6:15
  states have banned elective declawing. First was New York in
• 6:19
  2019. So this is all really recent. Then Maryland,
• 6:22
  Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode island and
• 6:26
  California. Washington, D.C. also banned it.
• 6:29
  And I want to examine California's path in particular, because it's pretty
• 6:33
  interesting. So, like we've talked about often,
• 6:36
  local ordinances create momentum that leads to state
• 6:40
  laws. So West Hollywood became the first US
• 6:43
  city to ban declawing all the way back in 2003.
• 6:48
  The California Veterinary Medical association sued to
• 6:52
  block it, and they won, but the court of appeals reversed
• 6:55
  and reinstated the ban. That was
• 6:59
  2007. Then the veterinarians
• 7:02
  lobbied at the state house in Sacramento and
• 7:06
  got the legislature in 2009 to pass a
• 7:10
  state law that would prevent cities from passing
• 7:13
  ordinances limiting medical procedures. It
• 7:17
  was set to take effect on January 1, 2010.
• 7:21
  Seeing the writing on the wall, seven more cities, including the biggest
• 7:25
  ones Los Angeles, San Francisco, Beverly Hills, Santa
• 7:28
  Monica, they rushed to pass their own bans before
• 7:32
  that state law went into effect. Fast forward to
• 7:36
  October 2025. That state law that
• 7:40
  didn't let municipalities ban declawing goes away
• 7:43
  and is replaced with a statewide ban. With
• 7:47
  overwhelming bipartisan support, with unanimous support
• 7:51
  in the assembly, that shows the direction that things
• 7:54
  are headed, and not just in California. I know California is always out there
• 7:58
  in the forefront, but California was the
• 8:02
  seventh state to ban decline. So this is really where it's going
• 8:05
  nationwide and beyond statewide bans. Cities
• 8:09
  like Austin, Texas, Denver, Colorado, St. Louis,
• 8:12
  Pittsburgh, Madison, Tacoma, they've all passed their own
• 8:16
  prohibitions on declawing. And three
• 8:19
  state bills are moving right now in
• 8:23
  Minnesota, Illinois, and Pennsylvania,
• 8:26
  and New Jersey and Michigan have had bills introduced, though they haven't
• 8:30
  advanced quite as far as. So rather than go through all those
• 8:34
  bill numbers and tell you about those laws, we'll put links to all of
• 8:38
  the bills in the show notes so that if you live in one of those
• 8:41
  states, you can contact your representatives about them.
• 8:45
  And if you live in another state, you can use them as potential
• 8:48
  models. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.
• 8:52
  So most of these bans follow a similar framework.
• 8:55
  They define decline clearly as a surgical amputation of all
• 9:00
  or part of the last bone of a cat's toe,
• 9:03
  explicitly including tendonectomy. They prohibit
• 9:07
  the procedure except when it's medically necessary, like for tumors in
• 9:10
  the nail bed, severe injury, disease, infection, or other
• 9:14
  conditions that threaten the cat's health. They explicitly
• 9:18
  exclude cosmetic reasons, convenience, or behavior management
• 9:22
  from that exception. The penalties are typically civil
• 9:26
  rather than criminal. For example, New York's law imposes fines
• 9:30
  up to $1,000. Minnesota has an escalating
• 9:34
  fine structure for repeater vendors, and that's common.
• 9:37
  And this addresses concerns about criminalizing veterinary
• 9:41
  practices while still providing a deterrent effect.
• 9:45
  And by that I mean these laws generally focus
• 9:48
  enforcement where the procedure happens in the veterinary office,
• 9:52
  so the penalties fall on the veterinarian
• 9:55
  performing it. In nearly every jurisdiction, it's the
• 9:59
  veterinarian, not the cat owner, who is the one legally
• 10:02
  prohibited from carrying out a non therapeutic declaw.
• 10:07
  Owners aren't fined for having a declawed cat, and they aren't penalized
• 10:11
  for seeking advice. The only scenario that triggers liability in
• 10:14
  some places is if someone actively arranges for an illegal
• 10:18
  surgery, but even then, enforcement is usually directed at the
• 10:22
  clinic. Lawmakers have been careful to avoid punishing pet
• 10:26
  owners. They recognize that the aim is to stop the practice,
• 10:30
  not to deter people from seeking care or to create new penalties
• 10:33
  for ordinary cat guardians. If we look
• 10:37
  internationally, opposition to declawing is even more dramatic.
• 10:41
  Over 40 countries have banned or considered declawing
• 10:44
  unethical, including most of Europe, the UK,
• 10:48
  Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and Brazil. In
• 10:52
  Canada, eight of 10 provinces have banned it.
• 10:55
  So now when you're advocating for bans, assuming you might, you might need
• 10:59
  to address the but what about the scratching? Objection.
• 11:03
  So let's talk a little bit about alternatives. First,
• 11:07
  we need to understand why cats scratch. Their nails grow
• 11:10
  in layers called husks, and scratching removes outer husks
• 11:14
  to make room for new growth. It also stretches muscles,
• 11:18
  marks territory through scent glands in their paws, and helps
• 11:22
  cats express emotions. The alternatives are
• 11:25
  straightforward. Regular nail trimming keeps claws blunt,
• 11:29
  nail caps like soft paws. Cover claws with vinyl
• 11:33
  caps and they can last four to six weeks. It's also helpful to
• 11:37
  provide scratching surfaces they're allowed to use, like posts
• 11:41
  and cardboard scratchers, and then use positive
• 11:44
  reinforcement when the cats use the appropriate scratcher.
• 11:48
  So now we have examples of states that have passed these
• 11:51
  laws and we have alternatives and medical support.
• 11:56
  So how can we be the change? Well, we're making it
• 11:59
  very easy for you. Check out the Show Notes. If your
• 12:03
  state has pending legislation, find it. Find
• 12:07
  the bill number right there in our show notes, and then contact your
• 12:11
  state legislator. Put the bill number in your subject line,
• 12:15
  say support hr, whatever the number is,
• 12:18
  and then write a short email about why you think they should support it.
• 12:23
  If your legislator is on the committee where the bill is pending, your
• 12:26
  call or email matters even more. Committee members decide
• 12:30
  whether bills even get a vote. If your state
• 12:34
  doesn't have pending legislation, you can help get a bill introduced.
• 12:39
  Check out those same pending bills and the bills that have already passed in the
• 12:43
  show notes and reach out to your state legislator
• 12:46
  or a state legislator that you know has sponsored other animal
• 12:50
  welfare bills and ask if they consider sponsoring a declawing
• 12:54
  ban. You can also just work at the municipal
• 12:58
  level. Cities can pass their own bans, even in states where it's
• 13:01
  still legal. Statewide, you can find a city council member
• 13:05
  willing to sponsor an ordinance. Also, you can
• 13:09
  just share information on social media, focus on facts
• 13:12
  and not judgment about people who've previously declawed cats.
• 13:16
  Explain what the procedure actually involves, share that it's a bone
• 13:20
  amputation, not just a nail removal. Mention that it's
• 13:24
  banned in over 40 countries and seven US states, and
• 13:28
  note that major veterinary organizations are now even starting to oppose
• 13:31
  it. The movement to ban cat declawing
• 13:35
  represents a cultural shift in how we think about animals who
• 13:39
  share our homes. For decades, convenience and
• 13:43
  aesthetics justified a procedure causing permanent alterations
• 13:46
  and sometimes lifelong pain. But as our understanding
• 13:50
  of animal welfare has evolved, as research has documented,
• 13:54
  the harms, policy and law are finally
• 13:58
  catching up with ethics. There's still work to do, and
• 14:01
  that's where we come in 43 states still permit it.
• 14:06
  Millions of cats live with permanent effects of past surgeries.
• 14:10
  Many cat owners still don't understand what they're asking for.
• 14:14
  But change is happening, and you can be part of making it happen
• 14:17
  in your state or city.
• 14:24
  That's it for today. The Animal Advocate Podcast is brought to
• 14:28
  you by the Animal Advocacy Academy. You can find
• 14:32
  episodes and show
• 14:33
  notes@animaladvocacyacademy.com
• 14:36
  along with a link to our Facebook and LinkedIn pages where we
• 14:40
  discuss our podcasts, and we'd love to discuss your thoughts and
• 14:43
  experiences there. If you're interested in learning more about
• 14:47
  protecting animals, subscribe to the show so you get every
• 14:51
  episode when it comes out. If you have any questions on
• 14:54
  this or any other topic related to animal law, email
• 14:58
  them to podcastnimaladvocacyacademy.com
• 15:02
  and we'll make sure to get them answered. We'll either email you back
• 15:06
  or feature them in a future episode, or both.
• 15:10
  And remember, compassion is great, but
• 15:13
  compassionate action is infinitely better. Until
• 15:17
  next week, Live With Compassion.