It sounds very painful to me. All of my other Yorkies had their dewclaws done, but Katie's front dew class were not removed. Her breeder does a lot with training and performance sports with her dogs, and I knew that she left them for a reason. I read something really interesting that you should show your friend. Katie is very active with walking and racing at fast pace to fetch her balls, and they have caused no problems for us.
http://www.caninesports.com/DewClawExplanation.pdf