Cats are lovable creatures that many of us consider to be members of the family.
Rightfully so, we should be concerned with their health and well being.
Your vet can give you plenty of information on monitoring your cat for illness and what warning signs to look for, but you know your pet best so make sure you pay close attention to things that are not normal.
As most cat owners know, it's quite normal for a cat to cough up the occasional hairball.
Cats spend a good amount of time cleaning themselves, so it's only natural that all this licking would cause them to ingest a decent amount of their own fur.
Most cats clean themselves several times a day, so they actually end up consuming quite a bit of fur.
Most of the time this just passes through their system, but sometimes the hair gets matted up in the stomach and forms a mass that's too big to pass through the digestive system, so the cat ends up vomiting it instead and out comes the hairball.
While hairballs are normally harmless, be sure to let your vet know if your cat seems to be producing an excessive amount of hairballs.
This might be a sign of digestion problems, and your vet can prescribe some medications to take care of it.
Hairballs can pose a serious risk to your cat if they build up too much and become very large.
If the hairball become so big that it can't be passed through or be vomited out, this causes a blockage in the digestive system and can actually kill your cat.
If your cat stops eating, stops going to the bathroom, or becomes very lethargic, this may be a sign that there could be a blockage in the digestive system, in which case you need to take your cat to the vet immediately to have it removed.
As usual, always contact your vet if you're unsure; it's always better to be safe than sorry.