We have two Bengals they are brothers and are both 17 weeks old now. We live in a flat but when visiting family we'd like to be able to take them out in the Garden and we thought using Harnesses and leads would be an option.

Can anyone tell me whether this is kind to them and whether they would like it or should I just keep them inside?

I read that they need to wear the harness for 1 hour a day to get use to them.

Any advice/help or tips would be appreciated.

Thanks, Gem

I had my bengal, Kasumi, on a harness last year when we visited my mil's farmer, and she liked it just fine. We got her one of those retractable leashes that gave her lots of room to roam and chase fireflies but also allowed us to shorten it if we felt she needed to stay away from something. Also, since she's an indoor cat, the great outdoors was a little intimidating, so she didn't want to roam too far anyway.

Kasumi has been used to her harness because she refuses to be in a pet carrier, so she's usually on the harness whenever we need to go anywhere. When she was younger, she would actually walk on a leash, but not she's decided it's not worth the effort and just flops over and refuses to move under her own power.

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Kenshin - male silver - born 1/1/07
Kasumi - female blue - born 10/24/05

We tried Moshi on a harness tonight, he rolled about for the first 5 minutes and then went back to playing with Indiana. I left it on him for an hour and he even laid down to let me take it off him. Didn't seem to mind once he got used to it. Going to get one for Indiana as they only had one small one.

Thanks for the reply as ours are house cats too so it would only be when visiting my parents or partners parents.

Cheers, Gem x

Bailey hated his harness at first, we kept putting it on him everyday and took him for a little walk on the garden and after a week or so he laid down and let us put it on him.

As soon as he sees it now he runs up to us and lays by our feet because he knows he's going outside.

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Kind Regards

Emma
www.Baileyblue1.piczo.com

Olly hated it too at 1st. Takes some time to get used to. Olly likes it now because he knows he is going to go outside...

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Olly & Kiki

Well I plan on letting them wear the harnesses for an hour each day for a bit until they seem used to them they we'll try them outside. It sounds from your experiences that I will get there in the end

Well when we got our Bengal from the cat rescue her previous owner had let her out but during her months stay at the rescue she was a house cat.

Anyhow once we got her home we were told to keep her in for 6 weeks and it became a nightmare as she was crying to go out as she kept seeing us going out of the door, so we bought a harness so we could walk her round the garden and help her get her bearings and scent etc. Well it wasn't a pleasant experience putting the harness on her as she just went bersurk and her legs didn't seem to work and the noise she made was mad.......any body listening would have thought we were trying to kill her !!! lol, shes a very opinionated cat as you've probably guessed.

We did try a few more times to put it on her and she just went mad so ended up giving in to her and letting her out on her own and luckily she doesn't wander to far from our garden. So if anyone wants a cat harness just let me know.


Kaz

I got a cat harness for Mikesch a while ago. If I do it right (e.g. make it a game as part of play) I can get it on him without too much struggle. His reaction is usually to roll around and see if he can get rid of it again. Sometimes, he successfully gets it messed up completely and I have to rescue him from the tangled heap he ended up in. I've got the suspicion that maybe it doesn't fit right. It has two adjustable loops, one for the neck and one around the chest behind the front legs, which are connected with a strip on the back. It looks like that strip (sadly nonadjustable) is maybe not long enough for comfort and either the whole thing sits too tight around the neck/legs or loose enough that Mikesch manages to stick his paws through to try and wriggle out of it. So I was wondering what type of harness works best for a bengal? Would a small dog harness work? Should it have a chest strip as well to stabilize the neck strip?

Hi Tameeria

The harness we got for Izzy was just a normal cat harness which fits round her neck and her chest so I'm unsure if they make any other types.........maybe they might in the USA ?

I guess you could always try a harness for a small dog but I don't think its going to fit any better.

Let us know how you get on.

Kaz

We tried using a harness, but when they came back inside, they would continually cry to go back out again, so we gave up on it....

Here's a couple of photos from thier first day on the harness as you can see they hated it and still aren't keen:

I bought another cat harness with a strap under the breast to see if that will work better. On first try, it looks like it's too tight around the chest and the chest strap is already on its widest setting. I'll try again tonight and see if I can adjust it somehow to get it to work a little better. But maybe I just have a big cat and really need to try a doggy harness...

On the upside, Mikesch is growing more patient with my harness experiments because he is quickly learning to make the connection harness = going outdoors. He still isn't thrilled about the harness, but the prospect of sitting in a sunny spot, eating grass fresh from the lawn and chasing butterflies around the flowers apparently provides enough incentive to tolerate my foolishness of putting it onto him.

We use a harness on our little guy. he didn't seem to like it at first but we used it just in the house for him to get use to it and then started taking him out. Now he loves it... when he sees it he knows he is going outside. Confetti has actually brought it to the door and howled a couple of times to get us to take him out. I am sure you will have luck with it.

Well, Mikesch seems to be eager and happy being taken outdoors on his harness, but he's proving to be an escape artist. He pulls on the leash and wriggles out of it! Does anyone else have that problem? I've got two different types of harnesses and he manages to get out of both. He gave me quite a scare today when he went off and ~wrigglediwriggle~ was running loose before I knew what was happening. Luckily the cricket that caught his fancy was under the shed in the yard and not across the fence or even road, so I managed to catch him pretty soon. But I'm afraid this was the last of his outdoor ventures for now... Looking for ideas for building a cat run now...

I've started putting Saffy on a cat harness, she had her first trip in the garden today. She tried to bite the lead section off (no hope, it's a metal clasp!) and run away from me.

She almost made it under the fence to our neighbours garden, so i had to pull gently on the lead to coax her back in to our garden..

The way i see it, she knows she hasn't got a choice anymore. If she wants to go out, it's a harness or a no go! After what happened to her brother, i'm not taking any chances. Even if it does seem as if her freedom has been snatched away, we just have to improvise.

I think some cats will love it, some won't. With Saffy, she hates it - so it's about 20 mins every few days of wearing her harness in the house, just to get her used to it - even if she does yowl, crawl along the floor, and then attack me, i know it's for her benefit!

Luckily for me, she doesn't know how to get out of it. Yet!

Tameeria, we're looking to building a cat run too. I've told the OH he has to have it made by the end of this week. We just figured the harness was a way for Saffy to get fresh air (safely) in the meantime. It's a hassle though!

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