I was worried when Ted didn’t want to play and was moping around the house. He had all the symptoms of a hairball lodged in his digestive tract.

I headed to the pet store looking for hairball medicine and bought two products. Both are made by Petromalt (no, I don’t receive money for endorsements). One is a paste, and the other is a "treat."

I put some of the paste on my finger and tried to get Ted to eat it, and he wasn’t interested. As he was running away, I "pasted" his back paw, hoping he would lick it off. Then it occurred to me that if he licked the paste off his paw, he would be eating more fur. Not what I had in mind for a kitty with a wad of hair in his guts.

So next I tried giving him a Petromalt treat. He wasn’t interested in eating, but luckily, Ted’s brother, Al, came to save the day. Al was happy to eat Ted’s treat and begged for another. Ted perked up seeing Al munching away. So I got out two more treats and gave one to each cat. Success! Ted got one down.

The directions on the package say you can give the cat up to four treats every other day until the hairball passes, and then two treats twice a week to prevent future hairballs. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt Al to have a few more.

After just a day of eating Petromalt treats, Ted was back to doing back flips playing with the fishing pole toy.

Now, if I can just a contract with Petromalt to do a commercial …