>If you have ever put a cone on a cat (which lasts about five minutes), you see they get crazy.
You got me thinking about this, as I've dealt with a number of sick kitties / foster kitties, etc but we've always used a paper plate with a hole in the middle in lieu of a purpose-made plastic cone. So thinking out loud here, our solution might not have been more generally affordable but also had the benefit of not interfering with whiskers.
Due to an incident with a door, my cat had to have a caudectomy and subsequently had to wear a cone for almost a month while she healed. It was awful! We kept her in a spare room to keep the other cats away from her, so she had a private litter box, etc.
The cone is pretty much a giant scoop, and cats sniff the litter to find the right spot before doing their business. You can see where this is going. She would take some of the litter with her each time.
On top of missing her tail, she is also missing a few teeth (I'd like to point out that she came like that) so she drools when she sleeps. The litter + drool makes a hardened mess on the cone, which required constant cleaning.
Yeah there's donuts, there's also stiff flat collars. Both seem better tolerated than cones except only cones can protect some injuries (like to the face for example).
You got me thinking about this, as I've dealt with a number of sick kitties / foster kitties, etc but we've always used a paper plate with a hole in the middle in lieu of a purpose-made plastic cone. So thinking out loud here, our solution might not have been more generally affordable but also had the benefit of not interfering with whiskers.