About 5 feet behind me, my cat is making hacking noises. It sounds like a hairball to me.
IS there anyway to help him out if he seems to be having a problem getting it out?
Is there any method of helping him prevent it?
I realize he’ll have stopped before anyone responds, but it would be nice to know for future reference.
Thanks.
No and No.
Cats just hock them up… always have and always will (at least since the dawn of the domesticated cat). There are probably some really expensive “treatments” that your local pet shop can sell you, but I wouldn’t bother. It’s just nature.
No, you can’t prevent it. As long as you cat licks him/herself, they will have to find some way of getting rid of all the ingested hair… et voila, a beautiful hairball…
Okay. Just wondering. Didn’t think there was, but I wanted to check.
I know why you asked. It really wants to make me barf. That skanky “hauaacuach” noise… EEewwww…
You can give them this stuff that seems to be malt-flavored petroleum jelly (found in any pet shop).
Better still, comb your cat often and all the hair you remove then won’t wind up in kitty’s belly.
One brand name for the stuff BwanaBob mentioned is Vitalax. Please note, use it with care because it is very much a cat laxative. The gooiness helps somewhat stuck hairballs pass a little easier through the intestinal track and soften stool.
Use a little too much (or when it’s not necessary) and you’ve got a cat with the squats.
Once they’re trying to hack it up, there’s probably not a whole lot that will help, but in addition to Vitalax and similar products, you can also “move things along” with a teaspoon or so of canned pumpkin. (Just pumpkin, not the pie filling with the spices and stuff). Oddly enough, many cats love the stuff - one of mine will beg for it like he does for wet food.
This generally works for cats that are constipated for whatever reason.
There are also some commercial cat foods on the market now, at least around here, that claim to help prevent hairballs. I’ve read that adding fiber to the cat’s diet helps… think I read that in Anitra Frazier’s book The Natural Cat as part of the instructions for making your own cat food – which, by the way, is a whole lot easier than you might think, and has the (IMHO, huge) advantage of not stinking like commercial cat food.
We have a cat who never horks up hairballs anymore, sheds a lot less than he used to, has about 5% of the dandruff he used to, and generally looks as dapper and sleek as a cat can. We feed him “Innova” brand Lite food and these vitamin lump thingies called “IN Nutritional Supplement” (which he considers delicious, though he’s not at all particular). On the other hand, we’re taking care of a friend’s cat who upchucks a hairball every other night, and who refuses to eat anything but generic Tender Vittles-type crap.
So, on the basis of this totally inadequate sample, I have come to think that cats who eat better-quality food suffer fewer hairballs.
Interesting, emilyforce. I’d never really thought about hairballs being related to food, although it makes sense, since it affects shedding. Our cats coats are certainly very soft and sleek eating Natural Balance compared to those of my friends who feed Science Diet or grocery store food.
I’ve fed hairball formula Science Diet to a couple of my kitties to lessen their tendency to hack up fur and it worked just fine. Although initially, with one of them, he seemed to throw up more often but he had a sensitive stomach to begin with. Frequent brushing or combing to remove loose hair is a big help too.
I do the brushing thing as much as I can, though I’m hindered by the fact kitty’s universal response to the brush is to:
A.) Grab it with as many legs as possible.
B.) Try to eat it (or the hair on it).
Wierd cat.
I have a problem with my cats-when it comes to hairballs, they don’t hack them up-they all seem to try and swallow them back down.
Is this dangerous for them? (Will they choke?) And is there anything I can do to comfort them and let them just yack it up?
(Petting them?)
I wanna know what jokester decided to engineer cats so that their hairballs look like turds. I hate finding those “Is it, or isn’t it?” surprises.
HPL, what I’ve done sometimes is given kitty one brush to chew on while I used a second. Results are mixed. Right now I’ve got a black longhair, first time for me. I try to comb her fairly often but she’s not too happy about it. She lies in my lap glaring and growling until I’m done.
I’ve never had a cat actually choke, Guinastasia, though they’ve coughed and hacked a bit. I tried soothing them but most seem to prefer I left them alone so I did, while keeping an eye on them of course. I found it sort of distressing sometimes to hear one coughing a lot but they always seemed fine regardless.
Please direct all comments, questions or complaints to:
God@existance.adm
Though I’ll warn you that it may take up to eternity to get a reply(Something about the bandwidth being insufficent). 
In the UK IAMS (sp?) do a dry catfood designed to help with hairballs. It is very good and the cat seems to like it.
I have a feeling you’re supposed to dose them with parafin, that works for cattle anyroad (NO DON’T TRY IT!!! It is probably wrong)
I’ve been told by the vet that IAMS is NOT good food for pets, actually.
Science Diet is better.
Guinastasia, Why, what does it do?
Sadly, I don’t know exactly, I only remember what I was told. However, soon I’m probably going with my mother to take Buffy or Gypsy to the vet-I’ll ask her again.
Well, I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest this is because IAMS can now be purchased at discount and grocery stores and therefore vets don’t profit from selling it at exorbitant prices like they do Science Diet. Previous to that I bet they thought it was just fine (if they carried it).
My current kitty has no hairball issues. My childhood kitty had significant hairball issues. She hated that petroleum jelly goo and would do her darnedest to eject it from her digestive tract. We fed her butter (or maybe margarine) occasionally, just to keep things moving along in her digestive tract. That seemed to work.