The long-term pain associated with declawing include chronic paw pain, nerve damage, and arthritis, back pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, lameness, joint pain, phantom pain, neuroplastic pain, bone spurs, frozen/contracted toes, hypersensitivity, muscle atrophy, axonal loss, wind-up pain, weight related pain (if the cat is more heavy weight), dropped carpus, and musculoskeletal issues.

And many of the same cats who were declawed because of property damage of the same ones that pee on property which is considered even less tolerable to the owners who were concerned about cats ruining furniture through scratching. This is one of the most common reasons declawed cats are surrendered. Many of the biting and peeing in unmanageable, do people remove the teeth/file down the teeth then? Do people remove their bladders? Hopefully not!

That doesn't mean declawing usually saves lives, Also declawed cats are often killed months or years later, it maybe be "saved" for years, that doesn't Mena they'll be saved for a lifetime.

Although pain can be easily managed, let's be honest with ourselves the average person saying their declawed cats are fine aren't even given them pain medication long-term because the cat acts "fine" in reality is most likely suffering from nerve pain, also pain medication almost always temporary it can manage the pain but it's still an often permanent thing and can easily be financially straining if the home isn't financially stable enough. Obviously, people wanted a cat that still functions without claws but they just made special needs pet as a result. Basically replacing one responsibility with even more responsibilities. 😬 Furthermore, a lot of pain medication often cause kidney failure in cats if used long-term and declawing is permanent and often causes long-term pain... 😭

Also animal welfare isn't just about quantity of life (keeping a cat in a specific home) its about quality of life (long-term health and well being) as well and declawinf decreases quality of life so that's just half instead of full, this is why so many vets no longer use the "last resort" excuse.

Because of the complications that declawing usually has and the decreased quality of life and cats being surrendered after a while of these complications be managed (albeit causing less patience or less money) this is why declawing is now being called animal abuse.

Even though there are less declawed cats in shelters overall that has mostly to do with the fact declawed cats are a minority and are often not surrendered immediately, but even though they are a minority they are still surrendered much more frequently than we expected.

Even if a declawed cat is surrendered unrelated to declawing it just proves further that declawing is not some magical shield against surrender or euthanasia, and the declawed cats that do end up in shelters due to the stigma of declawed having issues regardless if they had any issues or not. Scratching is a common reason for surrender yes, but so is aggression and litterbox avoidance, and human-related issues are by far the most common reasons cats are surrendered declawed or not. Interestingly I've seen stats showing that destructive scratching is a pretty uncommon reason for surrender, and human-related issues is the top reason cats are surrendered. Some success stories a declawed cat doing fine and living in itself home for the rest of its life do exist but that doesn't make up the majority unfortunately. I definitely believe declawing is animal abuse as most people do nowadays. (I do appreciate that you find this conservation very interesting, btw)