Fattest cat in the world 2022 and discussion

It has to be said that there is an ethical issue about having a world record for the fattest cat in the world and we are referring to domestic cats. This is because of the obvious, namely that some unscrupulous people will be inclined to overfeed their cat to try and achieve the record. Guinness World Records are aware of this problem and have curtailed their range of records to avoid animal abuse. I have updated this page to include a cat that I found on the Internet, on Instagram, who might qualify for the current record although this particular cat is not recognised formally.

Update as at 2022

Although not a formal recordholder, on January 26, 2022 I wrote about what I thought was the world’s fattest cat at the moment. Surprisingly, her owners say that she was not overfed. Her name is Lizyna and she lives in Russia. She is a grey tabby cat. The cat is definitely overfed so this is some sort of ridiculous claim perhaps to try and avoid criticism. There is no other way to say it. She is grossly overfed. She has an Instagram page with over 9,000 followers. People are obviously obsessed with extremes even if those extremes are detrimental to the health of the cat concerned. Lizyna is on a diet! What kind of diet? A diet that increases weight or decreases it? This cat’s tummy is so big that it drags along the ground when she walks. I have a full page on her so if you want to read about her then please tick on this link. Thank you.

Here is a current video from YouTube which seems to provide useful information on this topic:

Fattest cat in the world – previous results and discussion

As it happens there is (was 😢) a video (a screenshot from the video is above as the video has disappeared) that starts with the title “Guinness Rekord TV”. This is odd as “record” is spelled “rekord” indicating that this is possibly a Swedish television program. In short, I am not sure that this is the fattest cat in the world.

There are no names or details.  Although on the Animals of the Day website they say it is a Guinness World Records video. I wrote this about 10 years ago.

I am still not sure. Is it possible that the Guinness World Records people would not wish to create a record for the fattest cat as it would or could promote ill health in cats? In other words, it might encourage people to overfeed their cat to win the record. The fattest is not a record we (humans) would want to hold.

This is borne out by a comment on the website, Neatorama, who say that there is no word record for the fattest cat as the Guinness World Records organisation has stopped accepting applications for the record. They do say that the fattest ever domestic cat was one called, Himmy who was a tabby cat living with Thomas Vyse in Queensland Australia. He weighed 46lb 15.25 oz. He died relatively young, aged 10, in 1986 (see more fattest cats in a table below).

This is supported by Messybeast, who wrote an article about the fattest cats in the world (published 2001 – “008). Sarah Hartwell says that the record has been abandoned.

Here, though, is the video that I refer to:

Sorry but the video no longer works (Oct 2014)

The cat in the video weighs less than Himmy at 40.8 lbs or 18.5 kg. However, a search on the Guinness World Records website does not come up with a result for the fattest cat in the world. The website, though, does say that it only contains a fraction of the records. I find that very odd particularly as I could not see any directions on the site to where I might find the complete database. I presume that we are being encouraged to buy the book.

I conclude therefore that at the time of this post (March 2010) that the above cat might be the official certified fattest cat in the world. I may be that the Guinness WR organisation stopped accepting applications after this cat was crowned the fattest. Although, further research indicates that this might not be the case. It would seem that the record was abandoned before 2008¹

But there are some other very fat cats, and I don’t mean rich businessmen, two of which are shown below and both seem to be at least as big as the supposed fattest cat in the world.

Here is another claimed fattest cat in the world:

This is a still from this video. I have screen saved a still, albeit of poor quality as videos are sometimes pulled off the Internet:

Video removed as not working (Nov 2017) – sorry.

In my opinion this cat looks as fat as the other one if not fatter. Now here is another very fat cat, which is also from a video:

This cat, definitely, looks the fattest of the lot if it has not been digitally enhanced (which frankly looks as if it might be the case). Lastly, a visitor to this website posted a picture of their cat and it is pretty fat: BIG BABY.

More fattest cats – a list of record holders

Here is a selection of some fattest cats¹ over 40 lbs which seems to be the threshold at which a claim to be the fattest can be made. As can be seen by the dates, the idea of the fattest cat in the world was a bit of a fad, a phase that has now passed. It is a shallow idea to the detriment of the cat.

Cat	Weight	Owner (place)	Date
Poppa	44 lbs (about 20 kg)	Gwladys Cooper (Wales)	1983
Tiger	42 – 43 lbs (19 – 19.5 kg)	Phyllis Dacey (Essex, England)	1970s
Dinkie	42 lb (19 kg)	Miss K Dowding(Gloucestershire, England)	1955
Gigi		Miss Anne Clark (Cumbria, England)	1970
Baby	41 lb (almost 19 kg)	Mr Maefred Slawson (NY, USA)	1982
Snowbie	47 lb (Guinness Record)	Lorna Sutherland (Scotland)	1997
Katy	44 lbs	?	2003
Katy (Munckin dwarf cat)	40 lbs (18.1 kg)	?(Canada)	1991
Tulle (Tubcat)	43 lbs	Pedersen (USA)	2002

Fattest cats – health

A lot of these cats died before their time. Tulle, for example died of diabetes a disease associated with obesity. These are obese cats. Some had conditions that caused or contributed to their obesity but most were simply overfeed by humans. “Tiddles”, the famous Paddington station cat (London, England), another “fattest cat”, was fed by customers who used the lavatories where he lived. He weighed 32 lb (14.5 kg).

Other Cat Extremes

People are fascinated with the largest, tallest and fattest cat in the world. I have built pages on the first two. These are the links:

• F1 Savannah cat MAGIC – the Guinness World Record tallest pet cat (meaning domestic).
• World’s tallest cat in meerkat position (PoC informal record!)
• World’s Biggest Cat – this covers domestic to wild cats and includes MAGIC (of course, as she is probably the largest domestic at too although this is yet to be confirmed).

As I see it, the only “est” left might be the thinnest, which I doubt as it would be completely politically incorrect and more. No, wait, I am wrong. There is the smallest and the shortest. I have built a page on the smallest cat breed. Here it is: Smallest Cat Breed  – this is the Singapura AKA the Drain cat as it is meant to live in the drains. But can you find one?

But the smallest cat breed is not necessarily the smallest cat. I have not built a page on the smallest cat yet (March 2010) but there is a cat called “Pete” on the teacup cat page who is not much taller when crouching that the height of a cigarette packet. You can see him here: Teacup Cats.

Actually, the Guinness World Records people are (at March 2010) looking for the smallest living cat in terms of length and the shortest living cat. They are asking people to apply on behalf of their cat who has to be less than 15 inches long (as the current record holder is 15 inches long) and at least one year old. Applications must accompany:

1. Vet statement
2. Photo

I will do a post on this soon.

References other than stated in text:

1.  Messybeast website.