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Statistics and studies or the lack therof
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? ------------------------------------------------- ~kaeli~ Jesus saves, Allah protects, and Cthulhu thinks you'd make a nice sandwich. http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace ------------------------------------------------- |
#2
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kaeli wrote in message . ..
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. Vets are the only people with access to the true data. But when a cat presents with behavioral problems that *might* be associated with the procedure - and often are reported as starting after the declaw procedure - vets ignore the correlation. I've seen it dozens of times. I can't tell you how many times I've had owners tell me (when I was primary groomer) "I wish I hadn't declawed her - she's so mean now". Hindsight, unfortunately, is always 20/20. Personally, I think the subject has been beaten to death here. Furthermore, the definitive experiment has already been done. In Europe, cats aren't ever declawed and people live in harmony with them. If it can be done there, it certainly can be done here. -L. |
#3
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kaeli wrote in message . ..
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. Vets are the only people with access to the true data. But when a cat presents with behavioral problems that *might* be associated with the procedure - and often are reported as starting after the declaw procedure - vets ignore the correlation. I've seen it dozens of times. I can't tell you how many times I've had owners tell me (when I was primary groomer) "I wish I hadn't declawed her - she's so mean now". Hindsight, unfortunately, is always 20/20. Personally, I think the subject has been beaten to death here. Furthermore, the definitive experiment has already been done. In Europe, cats aren't ever declawed and people live in harmony with them. If it can be done there, it certainly can be done here. -L. |
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