I was sitting here wasting some time while I wait for some of my jobs to
complete and I thought it might be interesting and informative to do a
study on the two most controversial subjects out there right now in the
field of cat care - EAN and declawing.

There is a definite lack of good studies and information out there, IMO
because it is in the vets' best interests to not have people think the
procedures are a bad thing. The fact is, we really don't know how many
cats might be adversely affected by EAN or declawing - 1% or 50%. We
don't know if declawing early makes any difference. We don't know if
waiting to neuter is beneficial. Not really. The only studies out there
were done by groups with a vested interest in the results. Vets.

I was wondering what the thoughts of this group are.

If a web site were out there that asked for everyday people's
*experiences* with EAN and declawing (problems, lack thereof, age
procedure was done, etc), how accurate could such a study be? Even if
IPs were logged, people with nothing better to do could theoretically
skew the results. What, if anything, might be done to minimize this?

Could lay people be expected to correlate behavior problems with EAN or
declawing? Or to correlate problems much later in life with one of the
procedures?
Should the site list choices like "is more aggressive", "is more
mellow", "developed arthritis", "no changes noted", and such or allow
freehand entering or both?

Does this sound like it is a worthwhile thing to do?

How might the site get around so that enough people filled in the survey
to make it a representative sample? Usenet is rather small compared to
the entire world of pet owners.

Any other thoughts on this?

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~kaeli~
Jesus saves, Allah protects, and Cthulhu
thinks you'd make a nice sandwich.
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace
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