My cat hissing in her harness

New to Cats/Just Adopted

Hi guys! In the last two years, I’ve gotten two cats. I’m fairly new to cats as my first kitten was my first experience, I’m learning a lot, but need some help.

My older cat female, roughly 2 years old, loves to go outside and she has a harness that I put her in with a lead and she sits out in the backyard with me. As the weather’s gotten warmer, I just started taking her out again the first few times were fine. Her younger brother, our new kitten ,male about one year-old, outgrew his kitten harness, so one day I put him in her harness and took him out. Now today when I tried to take her out, she was hissing and won’t let me touch her after being in the harness.

I can’t get the harness off of her because of her hissing and running away and hiding, my question is, could she be doing this because he wore the harness? ( like a territorial thing) or is the most likely culprit that the harness might be too tight? He kept slipping out of it so I tightened it when he was wearing it and for her I just put it on, but she won’t let me close enough to check. Before this, she’s had no issue with her harness. I also thought maybe some noise outside spooked her but it’s been about two hours and she still won’t let me touch her. I figured after being inside she would’ve calmed down.

Please help, what is the most likely situation for her acting this way.

Posted Apr 9, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

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