Happy National Hairball Awareness Day!

Where's Charlie?

It's the last Friday in April my friends, so you know what that means! It's National Hairball Awareness Day, a time when we "paws" to recognize the hazards of hairballs and take steps to eliminate them, once and fur all!

Once again, FURminator has asked me and several other cat bloggers from across the country to create a project using fur we harvested from our kitties using one of their fine grooming tools. Last year I crafted Katy Perry out of cat hair (and won $1,000 for SPAC!), and this year we were tasked with making a mustache out of our cat's excess fluff.

Charlie went all paws in on the challenge, but opted to keep his identity a secret by donning a pair of disguising shades along with his fur 'stache. (Check out the full gallery of incognito kitties over on the Furminator Facebook page!)

Crafting with cat hair isn't all fun and games though, and as we all know, hairballs can be serious business. Since cats groom themselves with their tongues, they naturally ingest loose hair (up to two-thirds!), which can pack together in their stomach to form a hairball. In most cases, the cat will need to throw the hairball up, which is not good for them...or your carpet!

I support National Hairball Awareness Day because my kitties love getting brushed with their FURminator tool (we use this one), which can help reduce shedding and hairballs by up to 90%. Grooming your cat regularly can help prevent hairball issues, and is more effective then using traditional treatments that only address the problem once the hair is already in your cat's belly.

Now that you've got all the facts, me and Charlie would like to wish everyone a very happy National Hairball Awareness Day! After all, it only comes once a year, so grab your kitties and celebrate!

Disclosure: I received FURminator grooming tools in exchange for my participation in this project, however I have been using their brushes for several years and would recommend them anyway. Also, I can't resist a cat hair crafting challenge.

Happy National Hairball Awareness Day!

Happy National Hairball Awareness Day & Victory for Katy Purry and Sayreville Pet Adoption Center!

Fist pumps and paw bumps all around, y'all! National Hairball Awareness Day 2012 has finally arrived, and with it comes news that cat hair Katy Purry has taken the top prize in FURminator's celebrity "FUR creature" contest! What does that mean? It means that thanks to your help, FURminator is donating $1,000 to my chosen animal charity, Sayreville Pet Adoption Center in Sayreville, NJ!

From the bottom of my heart, I would like to sincerely thank every single person who took the time to vote, including my readers, friends, family, and everyone at SPAC. It means the world to me to be able to make this donation, and I couldn't have done it without your support!

Due to the current economic climate, as well as the loss of contracts with local municipalities (due in part to their refusal to euthanize feral cats), SPAC, which is the only no-kill shelter of its kind in the area, is still struggling to keep its doors open. If you would like to make a donation, or live in the area and are thinking of adopting a pet (perhaps one of the lovely kitties I featured during the campaign?), please visit their website for more information. They also have some great local fundraising events coming up that you might be interested in, including a yard sale at the shelter this Sunday, April 29th, "Dining to Donate" at On the Border in New Brunswick on May 1st, and Zumba (my fav!) in South Amboy on June 3rd!

As I've written in the past, my cats LOVE their FURminator grooming tool, and I'm not just saying that because we won their contest. Priscilla, the scardiest of scaredies who runs away if you even look at her sideways, comes running TOWARDS me when the brush comes out, and proceeds to rub her head against it before flopping over in her patented baby-seal-on-its-side pose. I also appreciate that it provides a nice opportunity for bonding time together, as she gets super purry and relaxed, while I generate materials for my next cat hair craft project.

Hairballs are a naturally occurring phenomenon in cats due to their propensity for self grooming, and according to FURminator, a cat can ingest up to 2/3 of their shed hair as they self-groom (blech!). As anyone who's ever had the pleasure of watching a fur induced hackfest or stepped in a gooey pile of fur detritus knows, hairballs are bad news. One easy way to prevent the nasty buggers before they occur, is to engage in regular grooming with a tool (like the FURminator, natch) which helps remove loose hair and undercoat without damaging or cutting the topcoat.

Thank you again to everyone for your support, and to FURminator for inviting me to take part in this awesome competition for the chance to win money for SPAC! If you're interested in picking up a FURminator deShedding product of your own (we use the Small Cat Short Hair deShedding Tool), they are available from authorized retailers such as pet specialty stores, vet clinics, groomers, PetSmart, Petco, and online at www.FURminator.com.

Disclosure: I received a FURminator grooming tool as compensation for participating in the National Hairball Awareness Day program, but all thoughts, opinions, and cat hair Katy Purry's expressed in this post are my own.

Happy National Hairball Awareness Day & Victory for Katy Purry and Sayreville Pet Adoption Center!