yeah, that's a point... then again, you'd be surprised at how may operations are done on animals without painkillers. =\ One of my kitties broke a claw and it got infected... the vet pulled it right out. *cringe*
Yeah the vet did that to my dog too. I was screaming at him to use anesthesia and he just laughed at me *LOL*
One could splash some lidocaine on the site (since the site was infected I would question the use since circulation is obviously impaired in an infected site) but think about how traumatic and painful it would be for the vet to inject the digit with lidocaine so that the toenail would not hurt when it was pulled out? Or, if you chose general anesthesia the cost would be around $75 and how would you feel if your kitty had a anesthetic reaction and died just to have a toenail removed? You have to make the choices and live with the consequences. Pulling the broken toenail out makes a lot of sense to me considering the alternatives. Also, a podiatrist makes the same decisions daily with humans and no one questions them.