Cat Scanning
 

I've never seen this before, but on a trip back from BLQ recently a gentleman had his cat in a cage and brought it onboard as cabin luggage. We went through security at the same time, and he had to take the cat out of the cage, and walk through the scanner with said feline draped around his neck with no lead or harness.

I was a little curious as to this procedure , as some cats may have taken the opportunity to make a bid for freedom, possibly airside. This particular cat was as good as gold in this case, but is this standard practice?

I have seen exactly that procedure at FRA.

The cat was good as gold and was calmly draped around her neck. A beautiful black cat. I asked the owner if I could say hello to him and give him a pat and she kindly obliged and I got my little cat fix. She was taking him back to the US. She told me she brought the cat over from the US with her when her job relocated her.

I think that's been the policy for ages. I last flew with a feline (Chicago to Dallas) some 15+ years ago and had to do the same thing, though that the time a collar/leash was permitted.

Yes. I had to do this when traveling with my cats. I put harnesses on them and leashes so that they could not do a runner.

I have one cat that would be gone in a second. He hates strangers and there's no way in the world that he wouldn't be willing to take on Homeland Security to get to a hidden space ASAP! We've tried kitty harnesses from Petco (2 or 3 different ones) and he somehow gets out of them immediately. He is such a sweet kitty to us, but he is terrified of everyone else.

I genuinely don't understand why they can't go through security in their carriers. Maybe they could just require them to be in a box carrier instead of the ones with metal?

They can. You just need to be specific to security that you want a private screening for the pet in an enclosed room.

^^ That's what I did. Mine were in their carriers and wearing harnesses but I just wanted to be safe. I had no idea how they were going to react. Took them to the private room and they behaved fantastically. My luggage and I went through totally like normal and then I took the cats in their carriers and we walked over so they could be checked out.