Cat Collar Safety

Our newest foster kitten came home with me on Friday. He is a little gray and white tiger. His name is Taro, which apparently is a Japanese name meaning first born son or big boy. We did not name Taro. He got his name from the foster family he and his brothers stayed with before he came home to us.

Both of Taro's brothers went up for adoption on Friday and may have even already found their forever homes. Taro was not so lucky. He was supposed to go up for adoption with his brothers, but instead had to come home with me to be given pain medication and an antibiotic. His situation has led to this post on cat collar safety. The basic rule is - too tight is bad, but so is too loose and Taro is a perfect example of why.

I was at the shelter on Friday morning dropping off Tiger and Arista so they could (finally) go up for adoption. As I often do after dropping off a foster, I stayed around to help the regular volunteers get the cat area cleaned and ready for the public.

When a cat or kitten is ready to go on to the adoption floor, a staff member checks it out, gives it any vaccinations it needs and places it in a carrier with food and litter. If the animal came in late in the day, it will spend the night in the carrier and be placed into the appropriate cage when the volunteers get in the next day. Most of the cats and kittens are perfectly happy to spend the night in these large carriers and in my opinion it is always better to have people around watching when you introduce new kittens to the kitten cages to make sure there are no fights or other problems.

Well, Taro and his brothers were a group of these sort of kittens. I was hanging their hello cards on the cage while another volunteer opened their carrier and put them in the large kitten cage. As she was doing this she noticed that Taro's temporary collar was caught around his lower jaw. Sometime during the night, he must have worked it loose enough that he got it into his mouth and got stuck. He was unable to get his mouth shut and the collar had been digging into his jaw all night.

We immediately cut the collar off him and checked him out. His mouth was so swollen that he could not close it and the sides of his mouth were all cut up and smelled like infection. He was also obviously in pain. Although it was not an emergency situation, we knew he needed to be seen by a staff member and probably the vet as soon as possible. The vet was doing spay and neuter surgeries that day. The less people that enter the sterile environment the better, so I just sat with him in my arms until we found a staff member who could take him in to the surgery area to see the vet.

Now Taro will probably be just fine and ready to go up for adoption by Thursday. Until then he is my guest and I am happy to have him. He is a fun, spunky little guy. The point of this post is to let people know to please check your cat's collar regularly. Most people think of an embedded collar as being mainly a dog problem, but cats can get them too. And they can happen quickly, even overnight. If you adopt a cat from a shelter please remember that their shelter collars are temporary and should be replaced with a kitten collar or an adult safety collar as soon as you get them home.

The problem with Taro's collar was that it was too loose, thereby allowing him to get his jaw stuck in it. The shelter I foster for takes amazing care of its animals and everyone who heard what happened to Taro was horrified. Each cat in that shelter is checked out closely at least once a day and if this can happen in that type of environment, then it can certainly happen in even the most loving of pet owner's home.

You should be able to fit one or two finger between your cats neck and the collar - no more, no less. Having it too tight or too lose can be dangerous and cause problems for the cat. So if you are not already checking the fit of your cat's collar once a day or every other day, then please start. Especially if they are young and growing or senior aged and putting on weight due to decreased activity.

I know I will be checking Doyle's collar daily from now on. He has been growing in leaps and bounds ever since I adopted him.