The Story of the St. James Company
In 1972 Samuel St James had a large German Shepard named Shadow, who seemed to love cats. One night this Shadow the Shepard did not respond to Samuel's whistles and calls, and upon looking for Shadow, he was discovered laying down watching a mother cat who lived down below the flat where Shadow and St James lived, with her little kittens. The owner of the cat gave Samuel one of the ten week old kittens, and this started a great love affair between Samuel, Shadow, and the newly found kitten named Tiki, who grew into a big and furry bundle of companionship with Shadow. As time went by St James started making different designed dog I.D. tags for Shadow, and other friends dogs. But it was soon discovered that St James friends which had dogs, and cats both, would never place a collar around their cats neck, as most cat lovers are very afraid, for good reason, that a cat climbing into trees and through dangerous situation could get its collar stuck onto a tree branch, etc.
Realizing that many cats are loved and have good homes, but as cats are said to be very curious, they can get into situation were they leave their home area, and wander through places, and then can be frightened by unfriendly situations and the cat will panic and run. Leaving the little cat now lost and afraid, and sadly looked upon as a stray, and so further faces hardships of being driven away from areas, and soon sadly is now a stray cat. As the owner of the cat cannot find their cat. St. James understood why it was not safe to put a collar on a cat. But it was equally unsafe to become an abandoned cat, lost away from a good and loving home. And St James realized that indoor cats can suddenly find an open window, or door, and curiousness leads them outside and suddenly they are frightened and fall into again a very bad situation of being homeless.
St James thought of what would be the perfect collar for a cat, light weight, round so as not to crush down and destroy the cats soft fur around its neck, and also must pull apart if a cat became hung up on a tree branch, or sprinkler head on a lawn, or caught on something, thus trapping the cat. One day he thought of the current idea of a custom connector which would allow soft plastic tubing to hold firmly together, but would pull apart if the cat was caught up with the collar. He invented the current round plastic collar with his custom designed connector. The connector allows a very valuable I.D. tag to be placed on the cat, thus showing that the cat is not a stray, and has a home, that if lost the cat can be returned to that home - by just the kitty’s name and an active phone number on the I.D. tag. Soon thousand of these collars with custom ID tags were being sold in Southern California through Veterinarian offices, and nationwide through Cats, Cat fancy and Dog Fancy magazines, now known as Catster and Dogster. So really the St James company was brought forth by a German Shepard, Shadow, and this dogs like and fascination over cats, and the need for cats to be protected just as dogs from being lost forever from a great and loving home. St. James does not have a store but provides Humane Society's and Vetrinarian hospitals with collars and tags, and would love to provide you with some too.