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Cat Collars

Why should you put a collar on your cat?

There are several reasons you should put a collar on your cat. The main one seems to be to add a bell so they don't catch as many birds. It's quite unpleasant finding dead birds or mice in the house and the easiest way to stop this is to make it harder for cats to catch them in the first place. A bell on a collar is a simple and effective way to reduce the cats hunting ability.

A collar also infers ownership on a cat. Even though cats don't have owners, only servants, it's still nice to be able to put a collar on your cat especially if you think someone else is starting to give the cat too much attention or feed them. For cats on a restrictive diet you can also get "please do not feed" collars - alerting people to not feed the cat.

You can also ad an ID tag to a collar - even if your pet is chipped, that can only be read by a chip reader, whereas a id tag can have your address or phone number on and can be easily ready by anyone finding your cat.

A collar also means that a cat which is picked up by the RSCPA or other animal welfare agency will assume it's owned if it's got a collar on.

For our cats a collar is essential as we have a magneticly operated cat flap which required them to have a "magnet key" on their collar. Without a collar they wouldn't be able to get in.

Collars are also very pretty and you can get them in many colours and even some reflective ones which can be good if your cat stays out at night!

So what do you need to know about buying a cat collar?

A collar should fit so you can still slip a couple of fingers underneath. Anything less and it's too tight, anything more and they will either slip out of it or end up doing something stupid like getting their leg stuck through it and then you'll have to untangle them carefully.

Look at sizing on the collars too. They do come in a couple of sizes so if you've got a delicat you'll need perhaps one of the smaller ones. I'd not thought about this before but I did measure my cat's neck (Oh that'd be a funny video to watch!) and she's got a 7" neck which means she needs the smaller ones.