what an adorable kitty
Yes! She did that before her teeth were pulled, too. It's the cutest thing and I totally squeal every time I see her do it.
Poor Phoebe has a hairball issue or something. Yesterday and this morning she was doing the noises like she was about to hurl, but with no actual hurling. I'm assuming she's just working on a hairball.
My mom used to smear a little Vaseline on our cat growing up, because apparently that helped guard against hairballs. Have any of you ever done that?
She's had maybe two hairballs she's thrown up over the last few years; they're pretty few and far between. I think this is the first time I've heard her actually making those sounds, though.
If she's still doing it tomorrow, I'll call the vet. She seems fine otherwise - a little low-key, but seems to be eating fine and was purring last night on the bed.
I have no idea where my mom had heard about that, or if she just decided one day that it would work. She'd wipe a little just on his side, toward the haunches, so it was easy for him to lick it off. 
Yesterday and this morning she was doing the noises like she was about to hurl, but with no actual hurling. I'm assuming she's just working on a hairball.
Meet the newest member of my family!
Sheldon.
we used to have a cat who got hairballs all the time, too. we gave her laxair, which the vet recommended. i'm sure it tasted pretty nasty but she freaking loved the stuff, she'd have the whole tube if we'd let her. though i'm pretty sure the vet said vaseline was fine, too.
They said it may be a hairball, but based on the "hacking" sound I described (what I would call a typical "hairball" sound), and combined with the mild lethargy she's had the past two days, I should bring her in.
Yeah, now I'm wondering if that's not a Hairball Hack, but an actual hacking cough, like she's got a cold.
I'll feel pretty silly if it turns out I couldn't tell the difference.
about mistaking her hacking cough for a hair ball, but the vet told me it's an easy mistake to make. It's good I took her in.
So yeah, it's not a hairball. She has bronchitis. I was feeling pretty
They ran a chest x-ray just to make sure there wasn't anything else going on, and while there were no surprises (whew), the vet was surprised to see that her airways were really blocked. It's amazing she only started coughing on Wednesday - she gave no other sign that anything was wrong.
Oh, and I've been concerned that the vet was going to say that she weighed too little, that she wasn't eating enough. Last summer, she was at 10 pounds, and I was worried she'd be below that. So they weigh her, and the assistant says to the vet "4.55."
!!!!!!!! I just about fainted. I said, "Um ..... did you just say she weighs ... "
The vet rolled her eyes. "It's kilograms. They're trying to get us to change to metric, and it's really stupid. She weighs 10 pounds.
She reassured me that Phoebe's weight is nowhere near worrisome, at least in her eyes. It's a different vet than her usual vet, as he's on vacation.
So yeah. She's on a course of antibiotics for 9 days, along with steroids, once every other day at first and then adjusting if need be until the vet is satisfied she's better.
Thank god for credit cards.
