Conference misery::feline_v1

    I would think once a week would be fine.  DO not give laxatone
    within 1 hr of eating either before or after.  It will prevent
    proper absorbtion of food.
      Nancy

    That's 1 hr of the cat eating, not you  (tee hee)

    
    	Must be the season for this....I was woken up last night
    by Nilla gagging in the corner.  To top things off...I don't
    have any hairball remedy stuff.  Does anyone have a "brand"
    they recommend?  I don't think the one I was using last year
    did any good...she still coughed them up and I also tried to
    figure out how often to give it to her.....
    
    Any preference by your cats?

    Is it bad for the cat to give them olive oil or something like that?  I
    have done that before (not often) and that seems to work.  What are the
    effects of this?
    
    mich

    For those of you who need Petromalt or Laxatone for furballs,
    come to the show in Boxboro and do your kitty shopping.  I 
    believe Haddeleigh House will be there and they carry all sorts
    of stuff.
    
    I also believe that you can get Petromalt in the grocery store.
      Nancy

        One of the simplest and cheapest remedies is a glob of vaseline
    smeared into the fur on one of the cat's front legs. If you are worried
    about the potential danger of vaseline (which most vets and feline
    medical books state is unwarranted, by the way.)there are non-petroleum
    based 'vaselines' that are available, made from vegetable fats, that
    will also do the trick...
    
        When applying this though, make sure you rub it into the fur in some
    place where the cat can easily get to it with it's tongue....like the
    front paws right above the foot...
    
       You'll get asome NASTY looks...and the cat will shake that paw until
    it realizes that it has to lick it off....and they will do so...
    
    
      JM
    

    Sometimes they *won't* lick it off, if they think it tastes bad enough.
    All but one of mine would lick off laxatone after awhile, but that one 
    would let it dry, and after about a day, when it was nice and crusty,
    I'd get to wash that leg.  And that *really* got me some nasty looks.
    
    Linda

    I give my cats Petromalt once a week.  They think it's a treat and
    shoulder one another aside to lick it off my finger.  In fact, I left a
    tube of it on the kitchen counter once and came home from work to find
    Hoover the feline vacuum cleaner had chewed through it and eaten close
    to half the tube.
    
    As a previous noter said, do not give it to them within 1 to 2 hours
    before or after eating.
    
    If it's Thursday it's Petromalt night.
    
    Terry
    

    My vet says vaseline is just fine.  Neither of my critters like it
    much, but they will both lick it off their feet while giving me nasty
    looks.  SOMEONE left me a hairball on the bedspread two days ago - if I
    figure out who, she is getting a greasy paw this evening.  if I don't
    determine who it was, BOTH of them are getting greasy paws.  Usually it
    is Nebula, even though she has shorter hair.  They are shedding out the
    winter coats now, and JFCL has been hard to brush because she had a
    stitch on her flank from having a small tumor removed, and is still
    sort of tender there even though I took the stitch out a week ago, so
    it might be her instead of Neb this time.  Why can't they leave
    hairballs places that are EASY to clean up - like on the bathroom
    floor??  Poor kitties...
    /Charlotte

      Re .9
      
      HUH???  Moi?? leave a hair-ball in the BATHROOM??? NO WAY!! 
    
    In fact, if my cats can find something REAL neat to leave it in, or if
    thay have to barf....a GREAT spot is one of my shoes...but ONLY if it's
    tilted in such a way that the 'deposit' runs into the toe area and
    cannot be seen...or found...until I put my foot into the shoe..
    
    
    
      JM

    Note 4542.12 that I entered may help those furballs.
    
    Lisa
    

    re:.10
    
    HA HA HA HA HA! :*) :*D :*) :*D HA HA HA HA!!

    > Why can't they leave hairballs places that are EASY to clean up 
    > - like on the bathroom floor??  
    
    Because it says right in the kitty contract that they're supposed
    to throw up on rugs or beds or other inconvenient spots.  And they
    NEVER throw up twice in the same place.  They must ALWAYS move to
    a clean place first.
      Nancy DC  ;^}
    

    RE; Olive Oil
    
    Olive oil is not harmful to cats, and THE FIRM is living proof. Like
    most Greeks, I can't cook with out it, and they insist on eating what I
    eat. I use the real stuff, which is heavy and green, and my cats
    haven't shown any ill effects. In fact, Kostas and Alex like to lick it
    off their lettuce before they eat the salad that they steal.
    
    Deb 

We had also heard somewhere that Vaseline was good for furballs.  We tried it
a couple of times.  We didn't even think of putting it on Tigger's fur for
him to clean off.  We just put some on our fingers and he licked it right off!
He enjoyed it, and we loved the sensation of that rough little tongue.  We
could have finished the jar, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been good for him :-)

Jill

    HA!  Brat's outsmarted all of us!!  During our first Petromalt
    adventure, I apparently didn't rub the stuff into the fur well enough. 
    I was picking globules of Petromalt off the walls and furniture for
    months.  Do you know what that stuff looks like when it's old?  You
    approach it cautiously because you're afraid the cat's been rubbing his
    butt up against the leg of the couch.  
    
    Our second Petromalt adventure was as much fun as the first.  Rubbing 
    the Petromalt into his fur with more enthusiasm this time, I thought I 
    had won and was feeling pretty smug.  Brat just as enthusiastically rubbed 
    the affected paw on the living room rug.  Needless to say, I've given
    up on Petromalt, Vaseline, etc. 
    
    I tried adding 1/8 tsp. of vegetable oil to his canned food, which he 
    gets every other day, and he stopped eating his canned food.  I've
    given up this idea too.
    
    Any other ideas?  I can't force-feed a hairball remedy to him; I could 
    lose my arm that way.
                                                   
    Any other ideas?

    Ah, but you can (sort of) force feed the Petromalt to
    him.  Put the inch or so of Petromalt on your finger.
    Quietly pull cat into lap, grab cat's head and rub the
    stuff along the teeth from front to back, pressing so
    it smears all along the teeth and into the corner of
    the mouth.  This is the only way I can get this kind
    of stuff into Casey, the terror when it comes to ANY 
    medicine. Amoxcillin looks very attractive splattered
    all over a gray rug! :-)
    
    Or, wrap Brat from the neck down in a large towel, or
    blanket or whatever, and use the same method as above.
    He can struggle, but the towel pins his legs so he
    can't claw or run away, and he won't be able to hurt
    anyone or himself.
    
    Lynne

   At the recommendation of a holistic vet, I have been using an herbal
   laxative -- Vetasyl -- for fur balls for my long-haired cat.  I get it
   from the vet, but I also saw some at the cat show in Boxboro.  It comes
   in capsule form.  I just open the capsule and sprinkle it over my cat's
   canned food.  She weighs about 10 pounds and gets one a day.

   Cindy

did anyone else read that long-haired cats have less of a problem with fur
balls than short hairs?  I read it in Cat Fancy about a year ago and I was
wondering if anyone out there could attest to whether it is true or not?  I
know Sam has never hacked up a fur ball (long black hair) and Hannah hacks
one up (or a fur tube in her case - just to be accurate) once every two weeks
on average (she is medium short haired).  all my cats get petromalt jammed
into their mouths once a week - I hold the cat and Marge simply pries open
the mouth and wipes the stuff off her finger into the mouth, shuts the mouth
and holds it shut until the cat swallows his/her dose.  It works.

    
    Nippa hates the taste of Petromalt, but *loves* Laxatone.  Maybe
    Brat might prefer a different brand?
    
    	M

	I wonder . . . would cod liver oil in the food work?  It seems
	that cats might lap it up.  When I was a kid, we used to give
	our longhaired cat mineral oil by the spoonful during the 
	shedding season - he wasn't wild about it :^}

    
    Re: .21  I tried to sneak in cod liver oil in Bailey's food and he
    wouldn't touch it.  I gave in after a day or so.  It is just like
    anything else though, all cats are different.  Give it a try!
    
    

    Dian, it appears to be true in my house.  The shorthaired cats
    generally have a double coat, and the undercoat is what molts out
    during the change of seasons.  Those cats with undercoat generally shed
    more and ingest more loose hairs.  My longhairs are all single coated. 
    Monroe was always the one that was throwing up furballs.  He is a
    shorthaired cat.  We occassionally have a furball coughed up in our
    house now, but since Monroe moved in with Mom I don't have to give any
    of the rest of my cats a preventative on a regular basis.  Generally
    they don't have a problem with them.
    
    Jo

    
    You could try tinned mackerel or sardines in oil.  These fish are oily
    in themselves and if you mash them up, more of the oil they are stored
    in coats the pieces.  
    
    I know my 4 love having a tinned fish treat now and then and the oil is
    helpful with their furballs.
    
    LaDonna

    All the replies about furball medicine state that their cats hate the
    taste.  Have any of you ever tried Hartz Hairball Remedy?  It works
    great and my cats love it!  I just push some out of the tube, and they
    will lick it right off the tube. 
    

my cats don't hate the taste...they hate that they are supposed to TAKE the
stuff when I want them to....so I gave up and now I operate on the
"forced feed" principle.  If they see the tube sitting around, they sometimes
taste it with relish - however, not often enough to be healthy. 

    Dian,
    
    I've noticed the same thing. My long hairs rarely cough up hairballs
    (I can't ever remember Her Lovlyness doing it), but right about now it
    seems to be a daily occurance for several of the short hairs DISPITE
    daily combing.
    
    Deb

    Several of my cats love laxatone or petrolax.  Of course, those
    cats never have furball problems.  The one who has it the worst,
    Mao, not only hates laxatone, petromalt, you name it, but also hates
    being brushed!
      Figures....

I'm relieved that I'm not imagining things....Samson has NEVER in his life
so much as looked like he was going to hack up anything....Hannah, on the
other hand, is sorta like 'Old Faithful'....no matter what I do, she WILL
eject little gifts onto the carpet approx. once a week.  I just comfort
myself by saying, "at least it isn't in her tummy causing problems".

    I started reading this topic with a sandwich in my hand and sure enough
    I heard plick, plick, plick whoooof and lo I recieved the first fur
    tube of the season.  

    Someone suggested I try mayonaise on my "TWITS" paw.  she likes it too
    but I never know how much to use and how often.  The hairball are 
    awful with her.
    
    So, need to know how much and how often.
    
    Thanks