Hi Scairdycat, and welcome. Believe me, this can be a pretty hot topic, but Maresche and Karen are right. My family has had declawed cats in the past(they came that way to us), and all of them were great! My husband, on the other hand, got a cat (before we were married) and had it declawed and he has developed behavioral problems as a result. I didn't know this before all these problems occurred, but the surgury is actually very painful for a cat and the pain can last for years. Being the kind of animals they are, they often don't show it (aside from developing a problem later on in some cases, like in our Scooter). Cats walk on their toes, so by removing their "toes", it forces them to walk on their heels which is both awkward and painful to some. Try training your cat to scratch on a post or another location that is ok. This can take some time and patience. If training doesn't work to curb the problem of clawing in unwanted places, Maresche mentioned the claw caps as an alternative. They are called Soft Paws nail caps (www.softpaws.com) and I use them on my cat, Marius. They work great! I can't promote these things enough as an alternative!! Maybe I should be a spokes person for Soft Paws. LOL
Both of my cats are indoors only, but I like to think if Marius got out somehow, he would at least still have his nails for defense even though they are blunted by the nail caps. This is definitely a better alternative than surgery and much less painful. After looking into what's involved in the surgery of declawing and its side effects, I have decided to never ever have a cat declawed. I'm thankful for these nail caps. We mainly put them on my cat, because my husband's cat is a little disadvantaged since he's declawed, and they can get rowdy when they play together. My husband feels bad about his cat, but neither he nor I knew what it actually entailed at the time until I did some research.