Today is National Hairball Awareness Day, so it is the duty of all cats to make their humans aware of hairballs. Did you know that humans can get hairballs?

According to Wikipedia’s entry about Hair Balls:

Although uncommon in humans, some hairballs have been reported, often in young girls as a result of trichotillomania and pica. In 2003, a 3-year old girl in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada had a grapefruit-sized hairball surgically removed from her stomach and in 2004, an 18-year old woman from McAdam, New Brunswick, Canada had a 5-lb hairball surgically removed from her lower intestine. Hairballs can be quite hazardous in humans, since hair cannot be digested or passed by the human gastrointestinal system, and (assuming it is identified) even vomiting may be ineffective at removing the hair mass. This can result in the general impairment of the digestive system.

Be sure to tell your human about all the ways that they can prevent hair balls, especially all the methods that work best for you! Here are some tips recommended by the Catnabbit! Cats:

1. Brush your human’s hair every day, or more frequently if they have long hair. This is the perfect time to pay them back for all those loving evenings of grooming with a fine-toothed wire brush.

2. Make your human take a laxative (like mineral oil, laxatone, or petroleum jelly for cats) if they get constipated and can’t pass their hairball.

3. Remind your human to eat lots of grass or catnip every day. This will help keep hairballs from getting stuck somewhere in your system. Humans really don’t like to eat grass, but you must insist that this is for their health and prevention of hairballs!

4. If your human has long hair, the only solution might be to get a haircut. Cats with hair only 1-2 inches long don’t get as many hairballs as cats with longer hair, so recommend that your human gets his hair cut to 1-2 inches length.

Share This

SID THE TUXEDO CAT loves his human. She is his only companion, and he adores her “to the crazies” as they say in french. Anyone who knows the pair can tell that Sid and his human spend nearly all of their time together. They have travelled to Europe, spent hours cuddling and watching movies, and they even share the same glass of water. He has marked her endlessly as his own, and he knows that no one will dare come near her without getting through him first.

On the morning of Valentine’s Day, the day of love, Sid brought his human a token of his love: a recently killed mouse. The rodent was caught in the wee hours of the morning after it was caught trespassing on their property. He gently laid the prize on her pillow next to her head as she slept, and snuggled up next to her. Hours later, he was rudely awoken by the woman’s screams.

“Then she chased me around the house, screaming and swatting at me with a broom,” moped the heartbroken Sid. “I’ve never felt so rejected.”

Not only did the woman loathe the gift, she ultimately threw Sid out of the house, where he has been sulking on the front porch ever since. He is still trying to determine what exactly it was that he did wrong.

Share This

Q: My pet human has been “going” outside his litter box. This is very frustrating because the laundry basket is really starting to smell. Do you have any suggestions?

A: Is your human’s litter box clean enough? Did you scrub out the bathtub and the toilet and the floors enough so that the human will not want to avoid his litter box? You don’t have to use your tongue. There are brushes that are available that do just as good of a job. When using a brush to clean the human litterbox, be sure to use cleaners that eliminate odors and kill bacteria, because these keep the area clean and healthy for your human.

Next, are your humans actually wearing the clothes when they go outside the box? If the box is clean, your human might have a condition called “incontinence.” There are medicines that can deal with this, as well as special disposable clothing and clothes linings (such as Depends) that help. Check the medicine cabinet and the closet. If you see any of these items, try dragging them out to the living room to alert your human that he needs to start using them again. Try not to rub his nose in the mess. This is only traumatizing and he won’t understand why you are doing this to him.

If your human is not wearing the clothes and is actually leaving his mark directly in the laundry hamper, you might want to call a psychiatrist to deal with his behavior issues. This could be the sign of a very, very serious condition. Hide under the bed until he starts taking his medicine.

Share This