Ann Marie Avey owns the world’s hairiest cat, Colonel Meow. He lives in Los Angeles, USA. Apparently, “hairiest cat” in this case means the individual cat with the longest fur.
Colonel Meow is a Himalayan cat. Himalayans are pointed Persians (Persians with coats that are pointed like a Siamese cat but with a greater range of colours and types). His coat appears to be silver or smoked. I am not sure. Perhaps Sarah Hartwell will comment.
He appears to be a traditional pointed Persian because his face is not extreme bred i.e. not totally flat with all the facial elements in a vertical line (flat face) and an abnormal nose. However, his face is somewhat flatter than what I have seen as the traditional Persian face.
Modern or contemporary Persian cats are bred to extreme. I am not being critical in stating that because it is accepted by everyone. The extreme breeding with regard to this breed includes small ears, round head, flat face and very long hair.
It appears that Colonel Meow has extremely long fur but a fairly normal face. All contemporary Persians have or should have long fur. It is so long that the breeder might advise the buyer to keep their cat inside permanently solely for the reason of keeping the coat clean and to help prevent matting.
Grooming assistance by the cat’s owner is obligatory and should be done regularly and routinely. The cat cannot maintain his own fur, which leads me to believe that the fur is too long.
Apparently, Colonel Meow’s fur is 9 inches long in places. Anne Marie grooms it three times a week. That is probably a minimum. Guinness World Records (GWRs) will list Colonel Meow as the world’s hairiest feline in the 2014 edition of their book. I have read that three vets analysed samples of his fur after Anne Marie made her application to GWRs.
There are bound to be challenges to the record in the future. In fact, I am sure there are many Persian cat owners who would say that their cat has equally long fur. World records like this are pretty arbitrary, the truth be told.
One accepted problem with GWRs is that with feline records there is a tendency for people to be a bit naughty and breed cats to extreme just for the record or to overfeed their cat to make them the heaviest or the fattest, which is why some feline records have been discontinued.
Note: the video may be discontinued by YouTube because I am not sure it is legitimate (not in breach of copyright. I don’t know).
I have a beef with the foul language his owner uses on his website, but that is just me. A very unique looking cat. I love his face. It looks monkey-ish? Maybe something from the Wizard of Oz? Anyway. Great post.
Does anyone know if Stewie is still longest cat? His owner posted that it has been 7 months since his passing and wondered if he was still the longest. Too poor to actually buy the book. I may have to go look at the bookstore. Now I’m curious.
Totally agree. I do it more with my Charlie and he has a short and single coat. I groom him with a flea comb (very fine compact teeth) top to bottom with ease. I would groom Colonel Meow at least once per day. Perhaps twice per day then grooming becomes easy even with a long haired cat.
Colonel Meow is very handsome but I hope there isn’t going to be a spate of cats bred with extra long fur because if so we know that the cats will suffer by people not grooming them enough and they will end up with matted coats.
I don’t think grooming three times a week is enough! Even short haired cats should be brushed/combed daily, I wonder if people who don’t do that would like their own hair left unbrushed/uncombed for more than a day.