General Pet is your source for advice and information for a happy and healthy pet.
Author: ron king Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
One may often encounter hairball problems with cats. Undigested hair that builds up inside a cats body are called "cat hairballs". There are only 2 ways for a cat to get rid of the hair caught inside - with the aid of the digestive system or coughing it out. Since cats have rough tongues which they use vigorously to clean their fur, their stomach collects dead hair in large quantities. It is common for hair to be processed through their digestive system and find its way out with other materials that "flows down the drain". From time to time too much hair will pile up inside the body, blocking the paths in such a way that an alternative path must be used.
Cats with long fur many times develop more hairballs than other cats. If a cat is not able to rid itself of cat hairballs through vomiting or through the digestive system, it may suffer from a blockage in the intestine or stomach. Left untreated for too long, it might be life-threatening. Without surgery, that blockage caused by a hairball may be deadly.
Although cats and hairballs are a common sight, one must pay attention in order to avoid complications.
Hairballs, while hard to avoid, are fairly easy to deal with. Brushing your cat and helping with its grooming lowers the chance of it swallowing a lot of hair. Brush strokes help get rid of a lot of that dead, loose hair. The diet of your cat could be helpful in eliminating hairballs from its system. Some manufacturers produce cat food containing special oils , like mineral oil, that help break up the hairballs, allowing for easier digestion. Shedding hair is also minimized because the oils help strengthen it.
Special treats for your cats containing petroleum products will also help preventing cat hairballs. These petroleum-based treats help coat the tummy and digestive system for easy passage through the body. There are several ways to administer these petroleum-based treats. Some cats may be fed simply by spoon. With others, try putting some food on their snout and maybe they will lick it off. If these methods fail, put some on their paws and watch them lick the treats off that way. If you follow this advice you will encounter the cats and hairballs phenomenon less and less.
The ties between cats and hairballs can not be broken and cat hairballs are here to stay. It is impossible to know when cats fail to digest hair and it is blocking their system. One may know of this blockage only once a cat coughs or vomit. If the hairball refuses to come out, symptoms of the blockage will consist of the following: coughing and hacking for more than a day, lack of appetite and lack of body eliminations. With the presence of these symptoms a cat must have surgery to release the blockage.
For more info, see Cats And Hairballs and Cat Hairballs. Ron King is a web developer; visit his website Cats.
Copyright 2007 Ron King. This article may be reprinted if the resource box is left intact and the links live.
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