Guess I might be on the other side of this one and have to agree with my wife. I would have had the cat put down when this happened. I like animals (2 cats 2 dogs)......but there is just something wrong with this.
I feel both ways about it. It certainly looks strange to see Oscar walking around on his metal paws, and I don't know if I could deal with seeing a cat of mine in the same condition. OTOH, it does not appear from the video I saw (I had to look on you-tube as this one would not play for me) that he's in any pain or at all bothered by his new legs. He wasn't chewing or over-grooming them as he would probably do if they hurt or itched. I think you're probably right that he won't be able to climb, and I doubt he will be able to run or jump either. But he seems to get around very well otherwise. On the clip I saw, he was sedated while the paws were attached to the metal pins that had been surgically implanted earlier. As soon as the sedative wore off, Oscar was up and walking. He looked a bit wobbly (which may have been because the sedative wasn't completely out of his system yet) but within minutes had gotten over the low barriers that were supposed to be keeping him in a small area for safety.
The thing about animals is that they don't have the mental difficulties with such things that a human might have. As far as we can tell, Oscar doesn't think to himself, "boy, my back feet sure look strange", he just uses them as if they were the ones he was born with. It's amazing what animals learn to cope with—I recently listened to the audio version of
Homer's Odyssey , the biography of a cat who was blind his whole life due to the loss of both his eyes to a serious infection before they had ever opened.
If I had a cat that was run over by a harvester, I probably would have had it put down too. It says something for Oscar's will to live that there was any decision left to make by the time he got to the vet. Frankly, I'm surprised he survived that long. But in such a case, my decision would be largely based on the expense, and my own emotional response to a cat with metal feet, not on a feeling it would somehow be wronging the cat. I hope Oscar continues to adapt well, and as long as he's not suffering or in distress, that maybe something is learned from him that will help others. I think there are many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who've survived wounds that would have been fatal in earlier wars, sometimes including multiple amputations. Maybe Oscar can help doctors learn to put them back on their feet again.
