Zihan Chen (April)

Instructor Vogel
Animal Welfare
14 December 2015
Scientific Journal Report
I love cats. So the issue I choose for this report is about cats declawing. It said this is the
common practice in North America. Therefore, I have more interest in it. I found out that there are
two ways used in the process of cats declawing: one is called onychectomy, the other is called
digital flexor tenectomy. Nonetheless, these two ways causes cats somewhat pain. Then which
of them is less bad for cats?
In my first journal article, it definitely studied about cats. There were eighteen client-owned
cats in total during this experiment. The treatments were as follow: these cats were randomly
assigned to three equal groups: (i) Control; (ii) Tenectomy; and (iii) onychectomy. The authors
stated that In the hour following surgery, Tenectomy cats groomed their bandages in a greater
proportion of sample intervals than Onychectomy or Control cats. Tenectomy cats rested in sternal
recumbency in a significantly smaller proportion of sample intervals than Control cats.
In conclusion, the authors presented under the conditions of our experiment, we found no
evidence that onychectomy was more painful than tenectomy in cats treated with analgesics preand post-operatively. Therefore, according to their study, tenectomy is viewed as a more humane
alternative to onychectomy, because tenectomy cats showed more signs of discomfort in the hour
following surgery. The interesting facts that I found in this article is that... Another one is that
among so many animals, especially cats, tend to withdraw and remain quiet when in pain,
behavioural variations associated with degree or intensity of pain may be difficult to detect. I
agree this opinion, since cats are more tend to keep quiet in pain, so the results could not be very
clear for us. But we still can get the results from different indications that shows the level of pain
of the animal.
The second journal article focused on bilateral flexor tendon contracture following
onychectomy in 2 cats just as the title said. The treatments were 2 cats in the 2 cases. The authors
concluded that Twelve months after surgery, the first cat remains free of complications. The
second cat recovered full limb function, but died of unrelated causes. The interesting fact that I
noticed is that Examination revealed that the cat was reluctant to ambulate, preferring instead to
crouch with his forelimbs tucked under his body. I feel like cats sometimes are lazy as well.
In my opinion, I agree with this idea that tenectomy cats are more painful than both
onychectomy and control cats shortly after surgery as the authors mentioned in the discussion part.
The reasons that I feel this way are as follow. First, it showed that "tenectomy cats groomed their
bandages more than onychectomy cats in the first hour following surgery, and rested less in sternal
recumbency than control cats". I feel like because tenectomy cats were painful at that time. Second,
it said " bandages can make cats uncomfortable" and bandage experts "reported evidence that
bandages may cause serious sequelae to routine procedures". Last, it suggested that "the bandages
caused pain even in the control cats", so it is clear that the bandages cause much more pain in the
tenectomy cats.

In summary, I believe that tenectomy cats are more painful than onychectomy cats and
tenectomy surgery is a more humane alternative to onychectomy surgery.

Reference
Cloutier, S., R. C. Newberry, A.J. Cambridge, and K.M. Tobias. 2005. Behavioural signs of
postoperative pain in cats following onychectomy or tenectomy surgery. Appl. Anim.
Beh. Sci. 92: 325-335.
Cooper, M. A., P. H. Laverty, and E. E. Soiderer. 2005. Bilateral flexor tendon contracture
following onychectomy in 2 cats. Can. Vet. J. 46: 244-246.