A proposal to ban cat declawing will soon be back on the table at the New Hampshire State House.
The operation to remove a cat’s claws involves amputating the bones on the paw. Lawmakers tried to pass a bill banning the procedure in 2023, but it died in the state Senate.
Laconia representative — and cat owner — Mike Bordes is behind the latest proposed bill and previous efforts in the State House to end declawing.
“I just think cruelty to animals should not be tolerated anywhere, never mind in New Hampshire,” Bordes said. “And, in my personal view and opinion, it is cruelty to the animal.”
Local animal rights groups and veterinarians have also called for outlawing declawing in New Hampshire. Dr. Sabrina Estabrook-Russett is the owner of Court Street Vet in Keene and has supported Bordes’ proposals to ban declawing. She compared it to cutting off the entire tip of a human’s finger.
“I think veterinary medicine and surgery as a whole has really started to advance,” Estabrook-Russett said. ”And most veterinarians are deeply uncomfortable performing this procedure”
Declawing procedures have long term side effects for cats, Estabrook-Russett said, including physical pain and behavioral changes. It can lead to cats being relinquished to shelters by their owners, and they often suffer from complications even when the surgery is done correctly.
Some cat owners have advocated for the procedure, saying that scratching could be dangerous to an owners’ health or their home furniture. But Estabrook-Russett says these arguments are often hypothetical and not supported by medical professionals.
“Scratching is a natural cat behavior. It is just as natural as going to the bathroom and meowing.” She said vets can also educate cat owners on training, nail hygiene and environment modifications to address scratching in their home.
“There's absolutely appropriate alternative interventions that we can offer that aren't these amputations that fundamentally alter their normal anatomy and cause long term complications.”
Declawing is already illegal in New York, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. But it’s difficult to get complete data on how many declawing procedures are performed in New Hampshire. Some lawmakers pushed back on Bordes’ 2023 bill, arguing that it was unnecessary if the operations weren't performed often in the state.
Estabrook-Russett pulled data from her own practice before she bought it in 2018 and banned the operation there. She found there had been at least 16 declaw procedures there in the year before the practice was sold.
“I think that it's something that is probably performed more often than we know or would like to admit.”
