Sorry about the cat collars problem. Our Bob lost THREE new collars, all with tags, in September alone. The most expensive one, he only wore overnight, less than 12 hours. I do have another one ready to go for him, but have let him go without, not wanting to just throw another one away.
These were all some “breakaway” type collars, two from WalMart, and one, which was pretty expensive, from Petco or one of the big chain stores.
Before that, our cat had one that was more like a reflective patent leather, also “breakaway”, and it did come apart a couple times, but he never lost it, over 4 years! I wish I could find that type again. It was just getting old, and the vinyl stuff was cracking a little bit, which made me think it might be scratchy to his neck.
I have a feeling that there are 3 collars with tags on them, under a huge blue spruce across the street. It has wiry branches, low to the ground, and if he didn’t intentionally “lose” those collars, he probably caught them in there, going in and out from under the tree. It is a favorite spot for him, because he has 270 degree view on a corner with a side street, and cannot be detected there, and I doubt whether a dog could get through to him, due to the dense branches.
Cats need breakaway collars, otherwise they’d strangle themselves on shrubs and branches. All our cats had them for years, and remarkably, we only replaced a couple of them. Now that they’re older two of them don’t go outside at all, and the other two don’t go more than 100 feet from the house. Now they have no collars. We still know who they are.