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Published on September 8, 2007

This morning, she even polishes off all her dog food, a welcome change from her previous demands for cat food.

A few minutes later, though, my heart drops. There's a puddle of vomit on the floor. I know it's not cat food, which has a distinctive odour. It is indeed dog food, and it's basically all Wan's breakfast.

If she were younger, around two months old, that upchucking would be extremely serious. Babies are not yet physically able to withstand the loss of fluids, not to say nutrients.

The cats carefully walk around the puddle and wander off. They know upchucking very well. Each one occasionally over-indulges at the food table, and the stomach rejects out of hand so much food at one time.

You wouldn't call this vomiting, just payment for too much greed. To avoid the problem, simply reduce the amount of food per meal.

Vomiting, which is much more violent, might occur right after a meal or hours later. Do check your animal carefully for other symptoms like fever, diarrhoea, mouth sores and blood in the vomit. Consult your vet if you're not sure.

If your pet is drinking a lot of water between bouts of vomiting, consult your vet immediately. This cycle is particularly serious.

Then Wan starts coughing, and I begin thinking of infectious disease, one that her vaccinations have not prevented. It's time to phone the vet.

That cough is strange, though. I've heard it before. "You know," I tell the vet, "the dog is coughing the same way the cats do when they're coughing up a hairball."

Even shorthaired cats have hairball problems. The fur they ingest when they groom themselves or each other doesn't pass through their gastrointestinal tract. It clumps up, and they have to cough it up. If they can't, it blocks their tract. Yes, a cat can die from such a blockage.

To avoid this problem, you should brush your cat regularly and give her some hairball gel, which helps move the clumps along.

"Your dog doesn't have hairballs," my vet replies. "Dogs don't get hairballs. Cats do." She advises me to wait a day or so to see if Wan's symptoms disappear.

I hang up the phone and wander out to the patio. There, my heart falls. Wan has had a bout of diarrhoea. If both ends of the pup are involved, we're making an urgent trip to the vet.

Then I look more closely at the mess on the patio. It's not very smelly, and it's full of cat hairs. Well, well, well.

Wan loves biting and licking my young Siamese Yoyo around the neck. Since she's in heat, she's also been biting and licking my big Siamese boy Pan-Pan.

She even grooms him. Her cat-hair ingestion must have reached an all-time high. She indeed has hairballs.

It takes only a bit of hairball gel for Wan to regain her digestive capabilities. My vet just laughs when I give her an update.

Laurie rosenthal