Friday, April 25, 2014

Are you ready for this?

In February, at the beginning of the What's Happenin' posts, a comment was made about not being surprised at the crazy things being celebrated. How some acquired the celebratory status, I'll never know. It is obvious if something exists, I do believe you or I shall find a day during which it is celebrated. Today is definitely one of the weirdest yet, but actually does have merit. Have you ever gotten up in the middle of the night to a wet mushy feeling as something oozy squishes between your toes? If yes, then you have already been initiated, so...

Get ready! Get set! Go celebrate...

National Hairball Awareness Day
always the last Friday in April

Kid you NOT! The very nature of cats is to keep themselves and baby kittens groomed. In the process of preening, the collected hair must so somewhere. Gulp! Down the hatch! At some point in time, what went down must come back up. Hair accumulates in the cat's throat or stomach until it causes enough irritation to trigger a retching hacking sound...thus, here comes the hairball!

Cats clean their paws...

Also getting between the toes

When it comes to kitties, they even clean the nose

Then, gag, gag, gag - with all their might

What comes up - not a pretty sight!

Did you expect a picture of cat vomit complete with hairball? You can always Google it (haha). To minimize the amount of hair being swallowed, personal grooming invites human intervention...thus, the brushing!

Will you please brush the other direction?

Not all cats take to the brush very well. My experience with many cats is they either like it - love it! - or simply hate it. No in between. However, you want to make it a positive experience since it is a very important part of a cat's daily routine. Newborn kittens are groomed within inches of their lives by enthusiastic mother cats, and personal hygiene becomes ingrained ranking above everything except food. Look at it this way, every time a cat is brushed, the collected hair NEVER becomes a hairball!

With all these thoughts in mind, National Hairball Awareness Day is indeed a good thing! It is a time to consider the grooming challenges of our purr-fectly aristocratic pets. Being beautiful and regal comes naturally to felines, but lots of personal grooming is required to maintain that exquisite superior look.

A cat's own ferocious grooming causes ingestion of fur, and sooner or later, in a most unbecoming way, the haughty, dignified feline will hack up a hairball. National Hairball Awareness Day is an invitation to be aware and to practice preventative measures to help kitty through this nasty process. Practice regular grooming with a pet brush to reduce the amount of ingested fur, and offer a vet-recommended diet for hairball prevention. Be aware that occasional hairballs are to be expected, but frequent hairballs could indicate a problem.