Based on the story Dave told, I'm of the mind that one of two things happened. And, each one is predicated on how much this ass boat lies about everything and anything.
1. Phil absolutely had the cat declawed. It was his condition for getting his horse an actual companion. He's always one to think that "more expensive = higher quality" and his first thought was that a curious kitty would destroy all the high priced lemons he has laying around the WaKahndo. The horse went along with it because she likely genuinely wanted a cat.
Reasoning for this: Story details. Cat was transferred from some other state and sat in this particular shelter for months and months and months because nobody wants declawed cats, and it tugged at their heartstrings enough to bite the bullet and get the runt of the litter. This cat came from somewhere, no documentation in transfer, happened to be already declawed, and is as young as he is... To me, this is all suspect. Now, I know that cats do get declawed young. Animals do get transferred to other shelters (when they facilitate transfers for the purpose of adoption... Washington state shelters wouldn't just call up a shelter in Arkansas, or some other 'midwest' state, and say "Hey, do you have any really young, declawed, domestic tabby cats? You do? Send it here! We want to let him sit for months!").
2. Phil didn't get the cat declawed, as he was already declawed and this was what Phil was looking for when going to adopt the cat. He wanted a less dangerous to his stuff cat to appease his horse, and this was a compromise they both made.
Reasoning for this: On the surface level, his story isn't entirely implausible, just extremely unlikely. The things that he's said that torpedo the whole thing is the nature of the transfer of the animal. Again, some shelter a half-country away isn't just going to request some random-ass animal for shits and giggles. If an animal is listed on their site, and someone out of state wants to adopt it, they will absolutely perform this act. But not "just because." If he had admitted to finding Ja$per in a shelter in some other state, said "that's the one!", paid the rehoming fee, and they did the rest...there's not much to argue about. In that instance, everything is above board (and while he could still be lying about everything anyway, which is always a wildcard) and he could actually be taken at his word for once. However, he always has to embellish on practically every event in his life, nothing is normal, everything is some herculean task. A boring adoption tale just isn't for Dave. A Little-Mac tale where the unwanted scrub gets picked up by the ultimate underdog in an epic tale of coincidental happenings....thats the shit Dave gets behind.