I think people forget that the veterinarians real client is the cat when a cat's owner turns up with her cat for treatment. OK, it is obvious that a cat cannot enter into a contract with the vet. The cat's owner does that, which places her in the position of guardian and caretaker. It is a position of trust and bounded by morality. There are no professional rules to follow for the cat's owner. She just has to do her moral duty towards her cat. The moral duty may extend to a duty under statute if she acts in a criminal way towards her cat. I am referring to cat abuse. The cat is the vet's client when treating a cat. The veterinarian has a professional duty of care towards the cat and this is through the cat's guardian the cat's owner. The vet must also follow professional guidelines and his oath . Sadly, from my perspective, almost all the vets in the USA are in breach of this simple duty of care when declawing cats because it is not done for the cat&

Veterinarians don't do enough to educate their clients on the difficult matter of declawing. Specifically, they can underplay the severity of the operation and can even deliberately mislead the cat's owner. Some veterinarians call a cat's claws "nails" for example. This hints at human nails. They are largely made up of the same substance "keratin" but they are attached to the digit in a completely different way. Then they say "removing the nails" when describing declawing is no big deal especially if the cat is very young. Poor kitten, I say. This sort of talk is hightly misleading. Even advocates of declawing, the people at the AVMA, cannot deny that this is neither ethical nor does it adhere to the AVMA policy on declawing. I say the AVMA are advocates of declawing. They would deny this and state that declawing is a last resort. Yet, they stand by and do nothing when vets mislead clients and declaw cats when it is obviously not a last r

It is important to have a good relationship with your veterinarian. He is obviously more likely to treat you and your cat better if you get along with him nicely. Money often motivates vets so one thing you can do is go at least once a year even if it is just for a checkup but don't be sold some sort of treatment. It is just a check up and a chance to maintain good relations with your vet. Image protected by copyright 1. Your vet should do a health check on the cat you intend to adopt before you adopt him/her. This rule applies to purchases of pedigree purebred cats, really, because money is involved and there will be a purchase contract. You need to know exactly what you are buying. Apparently vets don't like to upset their clients ;). If a person buys a nice looking, fancy purebred cat and takes her to the vet afterwards and the vets decides that the cat is very ill, he has to provide some depressing advice to his client. He'd rather do the check up before purchas