Decorations come out in Centennial homes the week after Thanksgiving, and with them come ribbon, tinsel, yarn and curling tape. To a cat these are the best things in the house. The trouble is that of everything a cat can swallow, a long thin strand does the most damage, and it does it differently from a swallowed toy.
Most owners do not know why. It is worth two minutes.
What a string actually does inside a cat
A swallowed toy moves along the intestine as one object. It either passes or it gets stuck in one place, and either way it stays put while it does so.
A string behaves nothing like that. One end tends to catch and hold, very often around the base of the tongue, sometimes further down where the stomach narrows. The rest keeps traveling. The intestine does what it always does and tries to push the contents along, but the anchored end will not move, so instead of the string advancing, the intestine gathers itself up along it, bunching like a curtain on a rail.
Now the string is pulled tight through a concertina of bowel. With every normal contraction it cuts a little further into the inner wall, always on the same side. Given enough hours it saws through completely, and intestinal contents leak into the abdomen. That is the part that kills cats, and once it starts there is no safe amount of time to wait.
The thing never to do
If you can see string, do not pull it. Not from the mouth, and not from under the tail. This is the single most important sentence on this page.
If the far end is anchored or threaded through bowel, pulling drags the intestine with it and can tear it from the inside. Owners do this instinctively and with the best intentions, and it turns a serious problem into a far worse one.
Call us first. If the loose end is long enough that your cat could catch it or you could step on it, cut it where it hangs free, never close to the mouth or the tail, and never with a tug. Leave the rest alone. The same applies to thread with a needle still on it, which is its own emergency because the needle has usually already gone somewhere.
Look under the tongue
This is the examination finding that gets missed at home, and sometimes elsewhere. The string often loops around the base of the tongue where you cannot see it without lifting the tongue up and looking right at the back.
If your cat will let you, lift the chin, open the mouth gently, and look underneath and behind the tongue. A thread caught there may be the only visible sign in a cat who otherwise just seems unwell. Do not force it if your cat objects, and do not pull anything you find. Tell us, and we will look under sedation.
Signs, and why cats make this hard
Cats are very good at hiding illness, and a cat with a string problem often shows nothing dramatic until things are already serious. Watch for:
- Repeated vomiting, often with nothing much coming up.
- Going off food entirely, which in a cat is never a small thing.
- Hiding, under beds and in closets, which is how cats express pain.
- Sitting hunched, or objecting when you touch the belly.
- Drooling, gagging or pawing at the mouth, which points at the tongue anchor.
- Lethargy and a drop in grooming.
- Straining with little or no stool.
Crucially, you do not need to have seen your cat eat anything. Most owners never witness it. If a cat has these signs and there is tinsel or ribbon in the house, say so when you call, because it changes what we look for first.
What we do
At our Centennial clinic we start with a careful mouth examination, usually with sedation, because a conscious cat will not permit a proper look at the base of the tongue. Radiographs and ultrasound usually show the bunched intestine, which has a recognizable appearance once you know to look for it, and blood work tells us how the rest of the cat is coping. Where imaging is not conclusive we may still advise going in and looking.
Where the string is still anchored only at the tongue and nothing further along has been damaged, releasing it early can be enough. Once the bowel is gathered and cutting, this becomes abdominal surgery, and sometimes a damaged section has to be removed. The difference between those two outcomes is how early the cat is seen, which is the whole argument for calling now rather than waiting. For anything that cannot wait, we offer urgent care during our open hours.
Keeping it out of reach
- Put ribbon, tinsel and curling tape away between uses, not in an open bag on the floor by the tree.
- Skip tinsel entirely in a house with cats. It is the one decoration with no safe version.
- Collect wrapping scraps immediately. The floor after a gift exchange is one of the riskiest moments of the season.
- Sewing kits get a closed container. Thread with a needle is the worst case.
- Hair ties, dental floss and elastic bands belong in a drawer, not on a counter.
- Check the base of the tree, where the fallen strands end up.
Our hours
We are open Monday through Wednesday from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, Thursday and Friday from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm, and Saturday from 9:00 am to 10:00 pm. We are closed on Sunday.
This is not a condition to leave until morning, and our Sunday closure matters here. If your cat has these signs on a Sunday, or after we close on any other day, go straight to an open emergency veterinary hospital in the Denver area. Tell them string is a possibility when you call ahead.
Common questions
My cat swallowed a short piece of ribbon and seems fine. Do I wait?
Call us rather than waiting. Short pieces often do pass, but the length that matters is the length inside the cat, which you cannot know. A phone call costs nothing.
Should I give something to make my cat vomit it up?
No. Never induce vomiting at home, and with a string it can make things considerably worse by dragging it back against the direction it came. Nothing from the bathroom cabinet either.
I can see thread coming out under the tail. Can I just pull it gently?
No. This is exactly the situation where pulling tears bowel. Cut it if it is trailing and call us immediately.
What about dogs?
Dogs swallow string too, and the same mechanism applies, though it is less common than in cats. The advice is identical: do not pull, and call.
Is it still a risk once the holidays are over?
Yes. Yarn, floss, hair ties and the drawstring out of a hoodie cause the same problem in February. The holidays just put far more of it within reach at once.
Speak to the team at Cherry Knolls Veterinary Clinic
If you think your cat has swallowed string, ribbon or tinsel, call us right away, even if they seem well. Do not pull on anything you can see, and do not wait to see whether it passes.
Published by the team at Cherry Knolls Veterinary Clinic.
This article is educational in nature and is not a replacement for hands-on assessment of your own pet by a veterinarian.
Cherry Knolls Veterinary Clinic
7300 S. Colorado Blvd, Centennial, CO 80122
Phone: (303) 779-1170
Hours: Monday to Wednesday 8:00 am to 6:00 pm; Thursday and Friday 8:00 am to 10:00 pm; Saturday 9:00 am to 10:00 pm; closed Sunday