With three cats in the house, we're had our fair share of goopy hairballs suddenly discovered under foot or hidden away in the guest room, only to be discovered when showing your mother-in-law to her sleeping quarters (oops!)
When Furminator asked if I'd be interested in joining in with National Hairball Awareness Day, I thought it a fun way to highlight something that can be quite a problem for people with cats. We've certainly paid out some gastrointestinal claims related to the issue.
Luckily, my cats Rocket, Rosie and Lily all have short fur but:
a) they all still have hairball issues every now and then, and
b) I remember back to when I used to have long-haired cats... which is why I now have short-haired cats
Here's a creation I made from the fur from 1 day of grooming the 3 cats with our 2 Furminators (one kindly donated to me by Furminator).
Mama Elephant Holding Her Baby
Do you like her? I think she's kind of cute - she just sort of popped out of the fur (that and the fact that my youngest daughter loves elephants.)
My two girls, Ellie and Erin, had a lot of fun helping with the grooming and fur gathering, loading it into ziploc bags for future use (goodness knows what their teachers must think we do in our family for fun).
Seriously though, how do you prevent furballs? I've generally had good success with 2 methods - food and grooming.
I've found that if I feed high quality cat food with lots of protein and as "natural" as I can afford, that helps keep the cats fur shiny and healthy. Somehow, it doesn't seem to clog up their insides as much as if it's a bit lank and greasy, which I find I get with lesser quality foods.
Also, grooming just preempts the soft underfur that would be shed being swallowed - best to remove in advance. I really do love my Furminator (and you can't beat that name!) and now I am delighted to have a new model that has the ability to push off the fur with a push button instead of grabbing it off. That's definitely a nice enhancement.
By the way, Rocket and Rosie found Mama Elephant after her photo shoot and totally destroyed her, her furry demeanor being much too fascinating to hold back.
The girls were very disappointed but I think I know where I might get some more fur to play with, don't you?
Disclosure: as I mentioned, I got a free Furminator for participating in this fun day. I added it to my growing collection - the purple-for-Embrace is a nice touch
