I may have ended a 45 year friendship last night.  I'm talking about a woman
who has been my best friend since the 5th grade - we've been through
*everything* together.  She lives in Mandeville, LA now, and I live in
Houston, TX, but until I moved to Houston in 1991 we were inseparable.

I always knew she wasn't a cat person - not even a pet person.  Her
interests are just in people not animals (so maybe she should have known
enough about me to know what my reactions would be before she dropped the
bombshell she did last night!!?).

A while back, she adopted two cats, a male and a female.  First of all, she
didn't get them fixed right away (even turned down my offer of the money to
have them fixed), so naturally she ended up with a pregnant cat.  She
refused to have the cat aborted/spayed, so I gritted my teeth and helped her
get through how to care for a pregnant queen and told her how to find *good*
slaves for the kittens.

At around that same time, she mentioned saving up the money to get them
fixed and *have them declawed*.  I spent an hour and a half on the phone
telling her why she shouldn't have them declawed and giving her realistic
alternatives.  We had several phone conversations after that with me
reiterating the reasons why cats shouldn't be declawed.  I gave her all the
grisly details of what declawing entails and told her that most civilized
countries around the world have made declawing illegal because it's so cruel
and barbaric.

I had a cat declawed many years ago when a landlord told me I had to.  I
didn't know then what it involved (thinking it was something like a super
nail clip).  I told her how sick and guilty I felt about it after it was
done, when I found out just what I had done to my fur-baby.  I told her that
I still haven't forgiven that vet for not telling me what it involved before
he did it, and I still haven't forgiven myself for not doing the research
beforehand and it still makes me literally sick to my stomach to think about
it.

She called me up last night to tell me that the male was having problems,
shaking his paw.  I couldn't figure out why being neutered should affect his
paws until she told me she had them declawed at the same time, even after
all I'd told her.

I lost it and told her again, explicitly, just exactly what she had done to
her cats and *WHY* they were still in pain even after a month.  I said that
since I'd told her all this over and over *BEFORE* she had it done, she
didn't even have the excuse of ignorance, just insensitivity, selfishness,
and cruelty.

She started whining that I shouldn't try to make her feel guilty about it
because her leather furniture had been ruined by the cats and someone had
given her a like-new leather sofa so she "had"* to declaw the cats, she
didn't have a choice.  I told her that I didn't want to hear it because,
cats (or any living creature)  mean more to me than some inanimate object.

I did get her to promise to spend the money to take them back to the vet to
check on regrowth/ingrown claws - I told her that it's possible the vet
botched the job (she said he was the best vet in town, highly recommended -
I told her good vets don't declaw cats).  What's really depressing me is
that I *KNOW* she's going to "get rid of" the cats as soon as they start
biting or having litter box problems.

We ended the conversation when she hung up on me.  And to tell the truth, I
feel worse about what her cats are going through than having ended a 45 year
friendship.  I'm just glad I have friends here who understand why that is.