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Khloé Kardashian admitted on camera that she had both cats declawed.
She now deeply regrets the mutilation, which is not only painful but puts both felines at added risk.
Khloé says that she was “misadvised” about the procedure.
Perhaps owning up to this mistake will help others to not do the same.
‘I was really misadvised’
On the Wednesday, May 20 episode of her Khloé In Wonder Land podcast, the eponymous host shared a confession.
Her cats are both declawed.
She got Grey Kitty and Baby Kitty (not original names, but thinking back to my stuffed animals as a kid, I have no room to talk) for her daughter, True Thompson, who is now 8 years old.
(Don’t forget, she is also a mother to 3-year-old Tatum.)
Khloé seems to know that this is indefensible, telling viewers: “I was really misadvised about getting my cats declawed.”
‘I feel really, really terrible’
“I’ve never owned cats before,” Khloé explained. “I didn’t even know that was a thing.”
She expressed: “I feel really, really terrible that I did go in this direction.”
Khloé has personally observed that the notoriously cruel declawing procedure has made her cats “miserable.”
In addition to the innate wrongness of removing parts of a cat’s body (sometimes likened to removing entire joints of a human’s fingers), there is also a safety issue.
No cats should be allowed to simply wander around outside. But, for Khloé’s cats, they would be in even more danger than other housecats whose owners effectively feed them to coyotes.
‘It makes me sad’
“My cats wear Air Tags,” she continued during the podcast episode. “Like, they’re not allowed to even go near a door.”
Khloé expressed: “I’m so afraid if they get out, because they have no way to defend themselves.”
She lamented: “They’ve lost their protection tools, so it makes me sad.”
Any housecat would be effectively defenseless against coyotes or cars, to say nothing of parasites, budding serial killers, and other outdoor hazards that indoor cats will never experience.
But Khloé is correct when she notes that a regular housecat who slipped out could at least stand a chance of startling a predator or discouraging a stray dog or alley cat before bolting to make their escape. A cat without claws simply cannot.
California has now joined several other states in banning the procedure
It is easy — and not necessarily wrong — to blame a cat’s human when a cat is subjected to this kind of mutilation.
However, as is clearly the case with Khloé, it’s too often the case where the responsible party believes that they are receiving solid veterinary advice. Declawing is sometimes (though rarely) advised alongside very good things, like spaying and vaccinating one’s cat, giving them dewormers and flea treatments, and more.
Some suggest that perhaps more emphasis should be placed upon veterinarians who agree to perform these treatments without medical need.
(This also comes up with parents making choices for human children, including irreversible mutilations such as circumcision. The medical professional who performs the act without question has fewer excuses for wrongdoing than the parent, more often than not.)
We actually think that it’s an indisputably good thing for Khloé to both admit to having declawed her cats and to emphasize why, for multiple reasons, it is so deeply wrong.
Like it or not, she has a massive platform and is tremendously influential. It is good for her to both own up to her mistake and to discourage others from doing the same.