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Well you may all remember I was trying to teach my older cat to walk on a harness. I purchased a velcro harness. I thought I was safety proof.
However, today, going down the stairs my cat slipped and somehow the harness came up and was strangling my cat in the mouth, my cat was screaming and literally jumping, making it all the worse. I had to get in there and pull the velcro but in doing so my cat bit me HARD on both hands. I got it off and my cat went running. He appears ok.
I am not so much. I had to go to the doctor and get antibiotics. Now my hands have swollen and are hard to move.
I am FURIOUS with the harness. It was sold to me as the safest but the way my cat slipped sent the whole thing tightly forward on her mouth -- I swear the only way possible to do this. I am grateful that it was easy to get off but bitter as I think the velcro made it easier to slide up than a traditional one.
That said, somebody else brought this topic up not long ago and somehow they managed to get the cat to be OK with it. How they did that, I will never know.
I really believe that a cat needs to be introduced to a leash or a harness at a young age, like, very young. I used to date a guy who had a huge orange cat that he walked on a 30 ft. leash. Sometimes, if they were coming around the corner of a building, you would see the cat well before you would see the man - it was very comical. The cat was calm and seemed to enjoy his outdoor strolls quite a lot.
My cat was introduced at 6 months. She knows when I get it out, it means outside time!
The way I was able to introduce it to her was first we put a normal collar on her with ID info. Then, she was used to that, we put just the harness on without the leash on. We let her wear that during the day when we were home for hours at a time. No big deal. Next, we introduced the leash. Easy (relatively). While she isn't a show dog walking around, she does not mind the leash one bit.
Thanks all. On another board someone mentioned that some cats just don't like new things and freak out badly over it. He was very nervous with the harness on period but I was trying to help him learn to love it by getting him to associate getting to visit the basement when it was on. Weirdly even after what happened yesterday he wants to head down there but I will never allow it again unless I get some rug for the stairs.
I had taught him to tolerate an asthma inhaler at an older age. So I figured it could be the same thing. But I don't know now if I should even bother. If we had a freak out like that outside... he would be dead. He is just a freak out first ask questions later type of cat.
I hope the bites have healed, & honestly, with an older cat I wouldn't bother with trying to leash train them, I sometimes think, it is our desire, for the cat be to outside, not the cats. Has your cat being attempting to get out of the house?
I hope the bites have healed, & honestly, with an older cat I wouldn't bother with trying to leash train them, I sometimes think, it is our desire, for the cat be to outside, not the cats. Has your cat being attempting to get out of the house?
My cat is a terror at the vet and seems terrified of leaving the house at all. So I hoped by letting him explore on his own terms he might lighten up about going to the vet. He would discover that going places outside the house would not cause him to explode.
The plan was
- let him explore the basement -- which he did pretty well with.
- let him explore the back yard.
- let him explore the front stoop
- let him explore the front yard
- let him explore going for a ride in the car in the harness
- let him explore the vet's office when he wasn't having a visit.
But that I think isn't going to happen.
I think I am going to explore an at home vet though I have had that before and it didn't go well.
I actually jokingly asked my vet on my last visit if she did house calls. She actually said she did, which surprised me, though there's an extra charge for it of course.
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