A cat collar has one job most people never think about, and it is to fail. A cat that hooks a collar on a branch, a fence panel or a latch has to be able to leave it there and walk away, which makes the release mechanism more important than anything printed on the outside.

Ancol's answer is the material itself. The Softweave band is elasticated rather than rigid, so a cat that gets caught can pull free of it instead of waiting to be found. Woven through that band are reflective strands, which is what makes a cat visible in headlights at night, and every Ancol cat collar carries a warning bell as standard to give birds and small mammals a chance. This one is 20-30CM, and Ancol make the Softweave range in four colours.

• 20-30CM
• Elasticated Softweave fabric, so a caught cat can escape it
• Reflective strands woven into the band
• Warning bell fitted as standard
• Ancol's fitting rule: two fingers between the collar and the cat
• Made in four colours across the range

The instruction nobody reads. Ancol's own instruction is to take the collar off before applying a liquid flea treatment, because the treatment and the collar materials can react with one another. That is printed on the pack and almost nobody reads it, and it is the sort of detail that matters more than the colour you pick. Note also that this is an elasticated stretch collar rather than a snap-open safety buckle — both approaches exist, and they are not the same thing.

Who it's for: owners of cats that go outdoors, particularly near roads, and anyone who wants a bell on wildlife grounds without adding one themselves.