I’m just sitting here at my desk and suddenly I hear the unmistakable sound of cat barfing (like usual–we have five, so it’s pretty common). I watched him barf and went to clean it up, and discovered two different “examples”–one was a normal scarf-n-barf food pile, and the second one was more like spit, with a pink edge around it.
Naturally, this freaked me out, since I’ve never seen anything like it before. It looked like faintly diluted blood around the edge. I’ve got a call into my vet but they’re booked up today and tomorrow so I don’t know if I can get in. I’m waiting to hear back from them now, but I figured I’d check with the Dope and see if anybody else has experienced this and might have some thoughts. Obviously if I can’t get in to my usual vet I’ll look for an alternative. I hope it isn’t anything severe–we’re out of town next week and he’ll be staying at the place we board them.
He’s a 9-year-old indoor-only cat, in great health, and he’s not acting at all sick or lethargic otherwise. I wonder if something didn’t just irritate his throat, but he’s my baby and I worry about him.
(Edit to add: I examined the original pile of barf (yeah, I know, eww, but I did say he’s my baby) and saw no sign of blood/pinkness in it.)
Strenuous barfing can cause some capillaries to burst. Pink tinge suggests fresh blood of that nature. Unless he starts acting lethargic or stops eliminating or other concerning signs, I wouldn’t take him into the vet yet.
I wondered if it might be something like that. The research I’ve done so far says blood would either be bright red or brown/black, and that pink might suggest an irritation or small wound in the mouth or esophagus. I hope that’s all it is, and that the vet will call back and give me the same assurance.
Definitely not grass–he’s indoor only and there’s no grass in the house. Can’t be 100% certain he hasn’t gotten into anything else, but the place is pretty cat-proof as far as problematic edibles.
I agree blood would look dark. But a mild irritation wouldn’t look more than pinkish. If he puked up from eating too fast the kibble may have scratched coming back up. I bet that is all it is.
Just heard back from the vet. He says he’s not worried, that sometimes cats get irritation in their stomach from barfing, and that as long as Nabby’s acting normal and wants to eat, it should be nothing to be too concerned about.