Why Is My Cat Coughing? Causes and When to Worry

True coughing in cats is less common than in dogs, and it's frequently confused with the retching, hunched motion of trying to bring up a hairball — the two can look similar to an untrained eye but come from different mechanisms and point toward different causes.

When cats do genuinely cough, common causes include feline asthma (a real and fairly common condition involving inflammation and constriction of the airways), respiratory infections, heartworm disease (which affects cats differently than dogs and can present primarily with respiratory symptoms), and less commonly, heart disease or, in older cats, tumors affecting the airway.

Feline asthma in particular often has a recognizable pattern — a crouched posture with the neck extended, an audible wheeze sometimes accompanying the cough, and episodes that can range from occasional and mild to sudden and severe. Cats with asthma sometimes go undiagnosed for a while because episodes can be intermittent and owners attribute them to hairballs.

What to do: If you're not sure whether what you're seeing is a true cough or hairball-related gagging, here's a closer breakdown of the difference. A cough that happens repeatedly, especially with a crouched posture and wheezing sound, or any breathing difficulty during an episode, warrants a vet visit — feline asthma is very manageable once diagnosed, but needs an actual diagnosis rather than continued at-home guessing.

For wheezing specifically as part of this picture, here's more on feline asthma and related breathing issues.