A lot of times people say their cat is "coughing up a hairball." But they are not actually coughing, they are vomiting. Hairballs come from the stomach, not the lungs. Typically cats don't cough, and when they do it can be a sign of something very serious! If you've been a Paws and Effect follower for a while, you probably remember that Thomas and Dahlia died of cancer, and the first warning of the disease was a cough. With that background, you can probably imagine that when I hear a cat coughin