Dealing with Your Cat's Hairballs

Nothing makes an owner feel more embarrassed than your cat yacking all over its pet sitters carpet. After all that bragging you did about Fluffy being a super clean cat. No, she wont ever do anything to destroy your carpets! Dont feel alone, it very common. Cats do a lot of self grooming. Their tongues are rough and remove loose hair from their coats. They ingest their hair and they digest it sometimes.

Other times the hair gets clumped up in their stomach and acts as an irritant causing the cat to hack and gag to bring up the hair ball. In other words, they vomit. If youve never owned a cat dont be alarmed it normal. Once you get used to it, it can even be a little funny looking. Four hairballs per month is considered normal. If they dont bring up the hairball they can actually block up their digestive track and cause serious complications.

There are a few things you can do to reduce hairballs. For one, you can help them groom. No, you shouldnt lick your cat. Use a brush! The less loose hair the cat has the less it will ingest. You can also provide your cat with a form of lubrication to help pass the hair easier. Some are in the middle of cat treats and other can be put on their paws and nose so that they can lick it off. Too much may cause very loose stools so be careful not to use too much.

You can also apply a quarter teaspoon of petroleum jelly to the cats paws once a day for about 4 days when it looks like your cat wants to bring up a hairball. Feed them a diet high in fiber. Extra fiber like catnip grass are nice sources of fiber for you kitty. Mix it in their food every other day to help if theyre fussy about eating it alone. A teaspoon of pumpkin will do fine too.

Make sure you know the difference between cats hacking up hairballs and really vomiting. Dont over look vomiting and assume its just a hairball. If its vomiting more than one a week then it can be a more serious problem. Take the cat to your local vet. There can be other reasons for vomiting such as food allergies, injections, and inflammatory bowel syndrome. Whenever you catch your cat behaving oddly, err to the side of caution and take it to the vet.