why do people call a cats puke a "hairball" if there is no hair???

Answer 1

Ever take it apart?? There you go!

Answer 2

It's a simple matter of association. Cats DO frequently hack up hairballs with hair, so when a cat pukes up vomit without hair, most people automatically assume it is a hairball simply because cats do this on a regular basis.

Answer 3

Vomit containing lots of hair was prompted by the cat's need to rid its digestive tract of hair, and in this case, the vomit takes the form of a hairball. If a cat simply gorks up partially digested food, then it is purely vomit. In both cases, this phenomenon is known as "meowing at the carpet".

Answer 4

Uh, it's called a hairball if there's hair - from the cat grooming himself. Otherwise, it's what it is.... depending on if the cat is sick, or ate something stupid, like a string, etc.

Answer 5

The cats I have had (including some longhairs and shorts) would hack, hack, hack, then hack up phlem looking stuff, then an actual hairball...with real hair.

Answer 6

Cats clean themselves by licking their fur, and end up swallowing some. More often than not, the ball has hair in it.

Answer 7

Yuck! - but anyway. Cats do barf up wads of gunk with hair in them. They also just barf in general -food, grass, whatever.

Why do we do this? We must really be bored or addicted to this stupid site!

Answer 8

b/c cats usually eat mice or rats, birds, etc... and they have hair, so there at least some hair in it, they throw up hair

Answer 9

the hair is somewhat digested and is unoticable

Answer 10

if there is no hair in it - it is just vomit