Four Great Ways To Prevent Fur Balls In Cats

You do not want your cat to get fur balls. Fur balls can cause constipation which can lead to major medical problems. Four great ways to prevent fur balls are daily brushing, making sure your cat does not have any external parasites, daily exercise and a preventive maintenance dose of fur ball remedy as the package instructions call for.

Daily brushing:
Brush your cat every day with a soft hair brush. We brush both our cats daily. Be advised that most cats do not like to be brushed on the stomach. If you do brush your cat on some part of its body where it does not want you do it will show its displeasure by hissing, getting away from you or in extreme cases even trying to bite you. Our cats just hiss at us if we try to brush in certain areas.

Most cats love to be brushed under the ears, down the back, under the chin and on top of their heads. Make your brushing slow and talk to your cats in a soothing voice. What you will be doing is bonding with your cat in a way that is very enjoyable to the cat.

Both our cats come running as soon as they hear the vacuum cleaner going in the evening hours. This tells them that their hair brush is being cleaned out and that it is time for brushing.

External parasites:
Fleas, ticks, lice and other parasites can cause a skin irritation which can cause the cat to excessively bite at itself thereby ingesting large quantities of cat fur. Make sure that you cat does not have any external parasites.

Daily exercise:
Is your cat a fatty or just plain bored? An overweight or bored cat will tend to excessively groom itself and in the process ingest more than a normal amount of fur. Get the cat going. Play with it.

We play with our indoor cats in a variety of ways. We throw plastic milk bottle caps up in the air so they can jump up and catch the caps. One cat loves to bat the bottle cap around on the floor under a pantry door. After he has hit the cap from one side he will go around the door and hit the cap back under the door in the opposite direction.

One cat loves to play with a ball. We throw it to her and she hits it back to us. We have a sock tied on a small piece of cording. One cat enjoys being in a chair on his back and catching the sock as we throw it too him. You would be surprised at the positions he can get into and still be able to catch the sock. They both enjoy playing in brown paper sacks and cardboard boxes.

Commercial fur ball remedy as preventive maintenance:
Use a commercial fur ball remedy on a weekly basis as a preventive maintenance measure. Make sure you follow the instruction on the package.

Remember - to help your cat not get fur balls, brush it daily, make sure it does not have any external parasites, play with it daily so it gets lots of exercise and as the package instructions call for give your cat a preventive maintenance dose of commercial fur ball remedy. Do these things and you will greatly reduce the possibility of your cat getting fur balls. Your cat will appreciate it and so will you.