# Whay doesn't a hair in its throat bother my cat?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whay-doesnt-a-hair-in-its-throat-bother-my-cat/349269>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 21, 2006, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whay-doesnt-a-hair-in-its-throat-bother-my-cat/349269 "2006-03-21T12:25:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![The\_Seventh\_Deadly\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6bbea6/32.png) [@The\_Seventh\_Deadly\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Seventh_Deadly_Finn)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whay-doesnt-a-hair-in-its-throat-bother-my-cat/349269/1 "2006-03-21T12:25:46Z")

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It’s springtime, and my cat is shedding like a fur-based fog machine. I have to keep my lips pressed tight together when I pet her to keep from getting a hair in my mouth. Even one hair in my mouth, or worse, in the back of my throat, drives me bonkers-- it’s really unpleasant.

So how come a single cat hair in my throat makes me gag, retch and cough uncontrollably, but the cat-- who has a cough reflex, after all; I’ve seen her cough-- can lick herself for hours with no problems? And are cats particularly impervious to the hair-in-the-throat problem, or are people hypersensitive to it?

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**Author:** ![The\_Seventh\_Deadly\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6bbea6/32.png) [@The\_Seventh\_Deadly\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Seventh_Deadly_Finn)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whay-doesnt-a-hair-in-its-throat-bother-my-cat/349269/2 "2006-03-21T12:30:52Z")

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Oh, damn it to hell; I misspelled the title of the damn thread!

It doesn’t get any more glaring than that. :smack: :smack: :smack: Grrr.