Sometimes, wound or tick-bite can cause dogs to lick their hair more often. There is fur shedding season for dogs which can cause them to ingest more hair than often. Fur Sheddingįur shedding can be other major reason for hair ingestion. The licking of own fur can sometimes lead to ingestion of hair and causes to accumulate inside the bowel. Self-grooming is the major cause of hair ingestion. Once a hairball is large enough, physical discomfort may compel them to vomit it out. Hairball formation has a kind of snowball effect once a hairball begins to form, the more hair a dog ingests, the larger it becomes. As they don’t often groom themselves like cats, ingestion of hair is least common among most dogs. Typically, a dog who inadvertently swallows his own hair or fur in the process of self-grooming will pass any stray hairs in his feces. It can be wet and soggy mass or a dry one too. The hairball is generally shaped rounded, tubular or spherical, depending on amount ingested. It is generally accumulated when the hair doesn’t pass through feces and is stuck in the intestine. Known as tricholith or trichobezoar, hairball is the accumulated animal hair or fur that surrounds a non-digestible item generally stuck inside the stomach of the animal. Unlike dogs, felines or cats have a major problem of vomiting hairballs frequently as they are more susceptible to self-grooming and cleanliness causing ingestion of huge amount of hair. It is mostly attributed to self-grooming, however, there other reasons for the dogs to ingest its own hair. Although it’s uncommon among canines, coughing up hairball can sometimes be a problem for dogs with medium to long fur.

Dog coughing like he has a hairball