In my cynical opinion there is not a vet in this country who doesn't know the negative life long effects of feline toe amputation. It isn't possible, in this day and age, that there is any vet who doesn't know it's been banned in more than 40 countries because it is considered unethical, mutilation, inhumane.
Vets know that cats are digitigrade and use those toes to bear 60% of their weight. Vets know that when these toe ends are amputated, the cat is crippled for life, the entire body is misaligned, forever.
That the cat now has to walk on little bones that were never meant to bear weight. 60% of the cat's weight bearing down on little unsupported bones never meant to carry any weight at all. Does this cause pain, chronic pain? Of course it does. Not only in their little feet, but in their backs, and legs and shoulders and spines.
Vets know that cats need their claws not only because they walk on those toe bones the claws grow out of, but for balance, for exercise, for physical and mental health and well being.
Vets know that the surgery, regardless of how it's done, is so painful even under anesthesia the cat reacts when the bone is cut. Some vets give shots of local into each toe along with the anesthesia and send the cat home with pain meds. Some vets don't even bother with pain meds. I know it hurts to read that, but it is true and documented.
A vet who uses the excuses "keeps the cat in the home" is either an idiot or a liar. I vote for both actually, but vets who declaw are accomplished liars. They say things like "no different from a spay or neuter" "cats don't need their claws". "I can take the claw without cutting the bone". "laser is painless and bloodless". "After the cat heals there is no pain". "Improves the human pet bond". "Saves lives". "I've done hundreds of declaws and have never seen a problem"
These are ALL lies. And declawing vets know it.
And that really really stupid one "if I do it at least I know it's done right". Sure. And how to explain the thousands of declawed cats in shelters, dumped for "aggression" or avoiding the litter box. That doesn't even count the ones who were dumped on a remote road, or tied up in a box and thrown in a dumpster, thrown from a moving car window. Or the ones "euthanized" because their behavior problems are so bad they are considered "un-adoptable". And why not visit "New Lease on Life" where the new paw repair specialty is in action, correcting all these mutilated cats' feet that these vets just HAD to do, to save this cat's home.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=new%20lease%20on%20life%20-%20vets%20helping%20declawed%20catsDeclaw vets don't want to know about that either.
There is one reason vets continue to amputate the toes of cats. MONEY. They make enormous profit from it. No one will ever convince me to think differently. They do it out of greed. Pure greed.