Soft & Secured Collars Are Kinder & Gentler

What a difference 24 hours and better health care equipment makes!   Yesterday I was starting to wonder if our cat was going to saw off her own forearm as she tried to pry off her post-surgery collar at the hard outer diameter's edge.  Today, the grumpy old cat is basking lazily in the sun, sporting her new "Comfy Collar".  Her arm is no longer red and has started healing, stitched ear still protected from scratching claws.  I like the soft collar so much over the earlier hard plastic nasty one, that I wrote a glowing review on the Petco site - I bought the Last One they had in the small size yesterday!

One drawback of the big cushy collar, is that it is heavy.  If our cat was not a hefty 15 lbs, old & strong, the collar might have weighed her down as it did on one of the other 40 reviewers of the product.  Another aspect of the soft collar, is that it needs a strong, secure, normal pet collar around the cat's neck to anchor it.  Since our cat is an indoor cat, she's never worn a collar.  I bought her a pink elastic one (yes, I am gender biased with cats), since all the other 'safe collars' were 'politically correct' with a quick release mechanism in case the collar gets caught on something.  

"Quick Release" = easy escape for a crafty old cat.  Yes, a "safe collar" would avoid a choking hazard, but I am home all day, keeping a vigilant watch over my healing feline.  The kinder, gentler Dr Desert Flower secured the pink elastic collar gently around the cat's neck this morning after we gave her medicine, and within an hour, the cat had backed out of the collar, wedging it between a table leg and the wall, freeing herself until I found her a few minutes later.  Pink elastic re-secured, snugly, the cat can still breathe, swallow, eat & drink... and is still kept safe from her instinct to scratch her itchy ears.