My boyfriend adopted Moxie from a shelter at 8 weeks old. She was a wild little thing. Would climb up the drapes. Dig at his computer chair. He even tried putting tape on the chairs. Only problem the first time he tired he used Duct-tape. Now when you have a long hair (Maine Coon Mix) cat with tuffs coming out of her feet you probably shouldn't use tape. BUt he didn't know that so on the chair the tape went. At 3 in the morning when Moxie decided to wake him up by digging at the chair she got the tape stuck to her feet. Freaked out and then got her one of her feet stuck to her belly and her tail stuck to a foot.
Now here he is all by him self trying to detape her. He had to use scissors to get it off. When I say her next the fur was gone from her feet and she had a big place on her belly with short fur.
My bf also would take his cat every where he went. He would take to his parents house on the weekends when he came back to Maine for a break from the big city live. Most people I know would just leave their cat for a weekend with either a big bowl of food or a sitter. Not him he didn't trust any one.
Anyway his mother after having her house ruined gave him the choice of not bringing the cat any more or having laser surgery.
Of course she ended up with the laser surgery.
I was not happy about it. But she was only at the vet for a couple of days and when she came home she was running around a like a little wild cat again. She didn't even seem to realize she doesn't have claws. Also in the parents home is Buddy who is declawed and patches who isn't.
I guess it just depends on the cat. Neither of these cats would ever end up back at the shelter.
I do agree that some people have their cats declawed unnessarily, and usually those cats are the ones that end up at the shelter. I worked at a shelter in WA state for two yrs. And we would get a lot of declawed cats in. Both those also were the first to get adopted (the shelter was a no kill shelter by the way but that is another story).
Good luck on the difficult decision.

Jaime
ps. I was to lazy to proof read.

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