There are several surgical procedures in common practice that do not have a medical benefit for the animal. These procedures are called non-therapeutic procedures and include tail docking, ear cropping, devocalization, and declawing. The first of these four procedures are typically referred to as "cosmetic surgeries" because they are used solely to alter the appearance of an animal. The latter two are known as "convenience surgeries" because they are used to inhibit an animal’s natural behaviors such as barking or scratching.
Tail docking and ear cropping are the most common cosmetic surgeries. These are medically unnecessary procedures used solely to alter the physical appearance of an animal. Tail docking involves removing the tail of a dog, either because the dog is a working dog or because it fits a breed standard (a description of the ideal characteristics of a breed of dog established by a kennel club). Ear cropping is the removal of parts of the ear to allow a naturally drooping ear to stand upright. Both of these procedures have supporters and opponents for a variety of complex reasons.
Despite most veterinarians agreeing that tail docking and ear cropping serve no therapeutic benefits for dogs, breed registries still require the procedure for many dogs.
Convenience surgeries are those that inhibit an animal’s natural behaviors. They place animals at risk without imparting physical benefits like other surgical procedures would. These surgeries are not performed for an aesthetic reason like ear cropping and tail docking. Instead, these surgeries, are as the name implies, for the convenience of the owner and include procedures like devocalization in dogs and declawing in cats.
"Declawing" (or onychectomy in medical terms) is an invasive surgery that entails removing the claw, bone, nerve, joint capsule, collateral ligaments, and the extensor and flexor tendons from a cat. It is comparable to cutting off a human’s toes at the joint as opposed to clipping one’s toenails. Declawing can be banned at the municipal level and, in July of 2019, New York enacted the first statewide ban on elective declawing in cats.
No state law bans cosmetic surgeries on companion animals, but a few states require that they only be performed by veterinarians. More and more states have begun to address convenience surgeries in their laws.