Let’s take a short break from my series about cat litter shall we? Today I’d like to discuss products that serve the front end of the kitty. A good many of indoor cat owners don’t see the need to have a collar on their cats but paranoid pet mom that I am I think it’s important to have identification for them just in case they sneak out and can’t find their way home. Even though *cross fingers* it’s been about three years since one has escaped.

A lot of people insist on using ‘breakaway’ collars that are designed to pop open if it gets stuck on a fence or tree limb or something so the cat won’t strangle itself trying to get free. While that’s an important thing to consider they’re usually made of nylon with plastic ‘break’ clips. I found that standard nylon or stretchy nylon collars would snag on my cats’ claws really easily when they scratched and they would end up having fuzzy distorted collars pretty quickly. Also, my cats vary in size - Phunq has a pretty thick neck while Melon’s is tinytiny. Most nylon collars have holes but there aren’t always enough to make the large adjustments I need. The stretchy nylon collars are sometimes built for the buckle to spike through the material which gives a wide range of sizes but I find the stretchy nylon snags and warps more than the smoother nylon.

I guess you can tell I’m very picky about collars.

A few years ago I found the most functional durable cat collars I’d ever seen. Beastie bands are made of a stretchy, synthetic fabric that’s fairly soft and not too thick or wide for the smaller necks. The inside of the collar sticks to a velcro panel on one end of the collar which means the size is fully adjustable and you can just trim the excess length off. There’s a reinforced hole for adding tags and there are all kinds of designs available. Even seasonal ones. And they’re cheap enough where you can buy them a few times a year.

This is the design my kitties are sporting right now-

but they’ve worn koi, butterflies, snowy trees, and chicks and bunnies.

They’re pretty durable - the design gets worn after a few months but the collar itself does not warp or snag. And with the velcro closure the collar will open if the cat gets caught - or it can stretch large enough for the cat to slip out.

this looks just like phunq! Images courtesy of here kitty kitty - my preferred source for beastie bands.

I usually use oval tiny tags on the cats but there are also some cute ’shrinky dink’ style fast tags where you can write the information on the plastic tag with a sharpie then bake it in the oven. I keep a few extras of these around just in case - they’re really useful when you’re travelling.