Declawing in Cat is associated with neuroplastic sensitization and long-term painful afflictions

Declawing of pet cats is widely believed to cause chronic pain and negatively impact animal welfare, leading to bans in many jurisdictions. However, little is known on how post-declaw pain develops and affects feline well-being. Existing data often fail to account for other sources of chronic pain, such as osteoarthritis (OA), which affects most aging cats. Here, the aim was to distinguish chronic post-declaw pain from OA-related pain. A secondary analysis of eight studies on feline OA was conducted, comparing somatosensory, biomechanical and functional assessments between healthy control cats, declawed OA (DOA) cats, and non-declawed OA (NDOA) cats. DOA cats exhibited significant somatosensory alterations (hyperalgesia and allodynia) and greater biomechanical (worse in heavier cats) and functional impairments, compared to NDOA cats. The alterations were not dependent on the number of declawed paws (two forelimbs vs. four paws). This alarming phenotype was associated with objective nervous conduction abnormalities indicative of worsened axonopathy in DOA cats. Our findings highlight the impact of chronic post-declaw pain and support the need to develop therapeutic strategies to alleviate chronic pain in DOA cats and highlights the pertinence of establishing a global ban of this elective procedure.