Harnessing the kitty power

One of the purchases that we were excited to make in the US and bring back to Bangalore with us this summer are harnesses for Mira and Chaya. When we return to the US we plan to fly them back with us and since we will have to collect them when we transfer planes (either in France or Germany) and keep them until we check in for our flight to Chicago we thought that it would be good if we could take them out of their carriers and not have them take off running through the airport. We figured that if we trained them to wear harness and could "walk" them around on a leash it would give them the chance to be out of their carrier for some time between the long flights but also give us the piece of mind that we won't lose them. So I bought two harnesses with matching leashes and once we returned to India in July we set about training them to get accustomed to both the harness and the leash. Let me just say that they were not (are still are not) thrilled to have the harness on but they have improved a ton. Initially as soon as the harness was put on Chaya she would fall over as though she had been shot and proceed to roll around in an attempt to get the thing off. She would get up, walk a few paces, then fall down again as though the harness had paralyzed her legs (have you ever seen video of those fainting goats, something like that). Mira, on the other hand, never fell over but would slink along the floor as though the harness was strapped with a fifty pound weight. In order to get them more excited about harness time I would give them plenty of treats but soon discovered that the best treat of all was letting them go outside, but only when their harness is on. Chaya loves to go outside and is pretty good at sneaking out when she is not supposed to so actually getting permission to go out is the best gift that I can give her. This past weekend we did some more training after about a month off (with Smoky's arrival I haven't wanted to stress them anymore and we haven't have time to do the training with all of the room switching and stuff) and I introduced them to their leashes. Everything went great, I took them up to the roof with their harnesses on and they played for about an hour until Mira decided that she wanted to go down to the ground floor and check that out. I put her on her leash and all was well, until Chaya showed up. I put her on her leash and soon learned a couple of valuable lessons about having cats on leashes. First, cats spook easily, and motorcycles are very scary when they are flying down the street. Second, one person can not handle two leashed and harnessed cats, this may be possible for dogs but I can't believe that it is for cats. Third, make sure that the harness is on tight enough that both cats can not slip out of it when they are trying to pull their hapless owner in half by going in two different directions. Luckily Eric ended up with only a scratch down his ankle and I spent 10 minutes trying to coax Chaya out of the gutter. Lesson learned, I don't think we'll be strolling down the street anytime soon. But don't they look cute in their harnesses?
Mira, wearing a Diane vonFurstenberg number in this season's hottest color, aquamarine.

Chaya looks gorgeous in her slimming Dolce & Gabbana cotton candy harness.

Strike a pose divas!