I am also looking for a cat carrier because my kitten has out grown his plastic one.
The metal ones recormended - does the cat not feel a bit exposed with there being no cover?
I to had concernes over the plastic carriers because my kitten goes mental when he is in his carrier
If you are talking about the metal sort of cage-y ones, Dot has one and she is fine with it, she actually prefers it to the plastic ones, which are all enclosed. Dot's a house cat and has never shown any interest in the great outdoors, so I thought she might be a bit freaked by it (it was bought on the vet's recommendation because as a Maine Coon, she's a big lass and I didn't like the look of the plastic clip things on the other type of carrier) but she was totally fine. The only time she got worried was when there was a very loud and barky dog in the waiting room with us. I had brought a towel with me, actually for fear of arse-explosion
, and draped that over the side of her carrier facing the dog and all was well. The cage carriers are really robust and it is dead easy to get the cat in there - open top, insert cat, job done, with none of that distressing bleeding and use of Anglo Saxon. You just need to bung some cardboard (Amazon's parcel stuff is particularly fine) and an old towel in the bottom of the carrier.
Hopefully your kitteh will be fine in such a carrier too.
C.