Newly adopted cat keeps losing breakaway collars, any advice?

[largeprintagathachristie]

I adopted a stray recently (owners were traced and didn't want him back) - a very active four year old boy.

My nerves are a bit shredded by whatever his mysterious activities are when he's not at home, and I'm aware that a similar good samaritan to me might think he needs help or he might get lost. Hence a collar.

I've had two attempts. Both times he's come home without wearing the (breakaway) collar. Last night's also included a tag with a QR code, via a pet finding service called Crumb. £9 a month for that. I found that all very reassuring, but he came back without the collar. I suspect he's going through undergrowth and, appropriately, the breakaway collar is breaking away!

My more sedate past cat did occasionally lose her collar, but it was one a year rather than one a night!

Are some cats just not good candidates for collars?

Advice? He is chipped.

Meant to say, collars with my phone number on, not just collars for the sake of it.

If he has never worn a collar before he might be pulling it off. Some cats just won’t wear one.

I will never put a collar on mine after - supposedly a safe, break away type - collar managed to get stuck round my cats jaw and he’d tightened it somehow and it was literally strangling him. He staggered into the kitchen with it like that and luckily I was there and was able to remove it. I will never put one on him after that. Too risky. He is chipped and I just hope that if someone found him injured they’d take him to a vet. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to go far from the garden.

One of my cats did this and I saw him do it !
He stuck his head into a privet hedge and then reversed out, leaving the collar behind.
After 4 new collars we gave it up as a bad job. He was microchipped so I wasn't too worried but the collar was to warn birds of his presence.

This happened with my rescue cat. We went through several breakaway collars and I finally gave up. He is chipped, so hopefully if he ever got lost and someone took him to a vet, they’d be able to contact us.

😆 I think mine must do something similar. We gave up in the end too.

My parents cat was always loosing his collars. At least with an air tag on, they got them back.

My cat comes home without his collar from time to time (I’d rather that than him get stuck somewhere.) Because he wears a tracker as well I can use that to locate the tracker and the collar (and work out what adventures he’s been on…)

My cat simply takes a collar off. He’s chipped, not much else we can do.

Mine have trackers so we can locate the cat or the collar if they manage to lose it. Rogz collars have breakaway clips that are adjustable depending on the weight of your cat.

Even safety collars can cause injury. As long as he is chipped don't use a collar.

Ours won’t wear a collar - he pulled them off so we’ve given up.

He also breaks locked cat flaps!

Some cats are very determined!

We’ve also given up on collars.

I think it’s worth losing a few collars in the first few months just so your neighbours learn that there is a new cat around and he’s a pet not a stray. Back it up with a photo of him on neighbour whatsapp if you have one. Then give up and accept that you won’t know where the hell he is half the time.

Thanks so much for all of the comments so far.

I think my worry is that there's nothing visual to separate him from his past life - living rough for a year (though he became my visitor cat - that's how this whole thing started) - and now. And though it turned out he was chipped, it took me quite a while to make the effort to get him scanned, whereas I would have called a telephone number on a collar pretty soon.

He was most unimpressed by the collars and indeed might be getting rid of them himself.

I think he's going to be a free spirit and I may need to roll with it. Sigh.