Rusty totally freaked out tonite,,

Rusty is our youngest cat and he is high strung. Well tonite he somehow got a small plastic shopping bag handle stuck around his neck and he just went crazy. He was flying around so wildly he knocked pictures off our bedroom wall till he got that bag off. I was affraid he was going to really hurt himself. We all tried to help him but there was no way we were going to catch him, we just seemed to make him more scared.

He plays with bags all the time and hides inside them and has a great time playing with them. I have never seen a cat so freaked out before. I was affraid he was going to have a heart attack or something like that because he was so scared. Then all the other cats freaked out not knowing what was happening so we had a bunch of cats with tails all puffed up and going nuts for a while. Tuffy just sat in his chair with a look like what are those dummies up to now.

Anyone have any ideas why he freaked out so much?

Because he couldn't get away from the thing - the noise of it, the potential strangulation, etc. etc. It's one thing to play with a 'toy' if you're in control, but another to suddenly be it's prey! To him (being a cat) having the thing grabbing him from behind and his neck made him prey. The exact same thing has happened to mine in the past. But you know how crazy cats are? He'll be playing with another one tomorrow! Just keep the ones with handles out of his reach.

Persil got a plastic bag round her neck once and freaked out, running up and down stairs with rubbish falling out all the way! She was terrified for hours afterwards. Since then I cut the handles of bags before I store them - I am just thankful I was here when it happened.

I let mine play with plastic bags. But I cut the handles off first. As once one of mine did the samething yours did scared it her to death.

That happened to my girl Festie once, too. But she is pretty level headed, so when I called her she slowed down enough that I caught the bag and untangled her. It hung on her neck and "chased" her as she tried to run away! Very frightening to a kitty!

Rusty seems fine and didn't hurt himself when he was flying around last night. Like I said he is very high strung and jumpy any ways.