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.

World’s hairiest feline “Colonel Meow” – a Himalayan cat

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).