I've been fortunate this winter that we haven't had many hairballs since Simone has been letting me groom her with the brush that Anita gave me...but I just got back home after 10 days gone, and Simone didn't get groomed, so I think that's why this morning she decided to cough up a hairball...kind of. I was asleep and she came in the bedroom to cough it up next to the bed (lovely girl that she is) and it woke me up, but then I noticed that she just kept on gagging and making sounds so I turned on the light and she had a hairball hanging out of her mouth and appeared to be gagging on it. I panicked and grabbed her and grabbed the end of the hairball and pulled (thinking they usually seem pretty solid so I could pull it out of her throat), but I only got the part that was hanging out of her mouth (about an inch). Then she runs off and I start following her, it was like she couldn't quit walking, but she wasn't gagging anymore and didn't appear to have breathing problems. I got her favorite treat to give her to make sure that her passage was open (I figured if she ate it then she was able to swallow) -- and she did eat it, and then ate some wet food I put down. We had a good play this morning so nothing seems to be bothering her. She was laying on the bathroom floor as I was getting ready for work and started kind of licking her lips and very small piece (about the size of 1/4 of a raisin, that small) fell out of her mouth.
Anyway -- to the experts....should I have just let her continue to gag it out? Has anyone ever had a cat that got choked on a hairball requiring emergency intervention?
o my what a way to be woke up.
I'll have to watch your thread cause I have yet
to see a hair ball out of my two much less that.
Glade Simone seems to be ok tho.
Teresa : Just now, I found a small lump of "hairball" on the floor for the 1st time!! So, obviously I didn't hear any gagging... Dunno whether it comes from Sky or Evo... I am quite surprised to see the hairball as I groom my boys at least once a day, sometimes twice a day... How often does a cat cough out hairball? Is it necessary to buy those commercially available products for hairball?
It depends on how much fur they swallow as to how often they cough them up. I think regardless of how much you groom them, they can still get them because they groom themselves and each other too. I feed mine a hairball formula to try and keep the fur moving through the system, but periodically if I think they have a hairball (I can usually tell now) I'll give some catlax to help it along.
My Kizzi has or had hairballs til we switched foods to Nuto and she has them only occassionally and she is one who will not let you groom her.
The boys have not had any. I also notice if I use any Science Diet T/D and Kizzi eats it she has hairballs.
T at least you did not jump out of bed into it. James has stepped in it so many times as Kizzi always placed it in front of our bedroom door and James never looks where he is going.
Anyway, glad you are home and that all is well now.
I'm no expert on this subject but I would have pulled it out as well.
Poor Simone! I'm glad she's OK. If your husband doesn't groom her while you're away, maybe he could feed her a little (half-inch ribbon) Petromalt every other day or something. I feed my cats hairball control food, but they were still coughing up hairballs once every week or 2, so I started to periodically give them a little Petromalt, and they eat it right off of my finger. (and they haven't coughed up a hairball since then, and it's been 3 weeks)
I would rather have them cough up hairballs than pass them. We have never had a problem from the former and came close to losing a cat from the latter.
We were away for five days and Sam went into shedding overdrive. We've gone from having a cat decorously reducing his winter coat to owning a pointed meerkat with a long skinny neck. Three huge hairballs were left despite being groomed twice a day by the pet sitters. We're now grooming on demand, up to a dozen times a day.
Jan mentioned something like cats 'blowing' their coats - is this what's happening?
(I'm so glad I didn't have a half in / half out hairball crisis. I would have panicked.)
T,
That must have been so frightening. I probably would have done the same thing, pulled it out. I've always been fortunate through the years I guess, not many hairballs around here. Glad she's ok.