Depends on how you do the surgery, i suppose. I've seen a few done, and by a good surgeon there's very few complications and the dogs recovered just fine and quickly. but he does them through an incision, not the older fashioned down the trachea with a pair of carmalts technique. the way my boss does them, i really wouldn't call it any more cruel than any other surgery, and probably less so than declawing an adult cat.