by Sam Stall
By that time Perry had owned the male sphinx, whom he had renamed Granpa Rexs Allen, for quite a while. Nevertheless, he agreed to let the woman have a look at him. After confirming that it was indeed her cat, she graciously allowed his benefactor to keep him. She even handed over his pedigree papers, which stated that he was born early on the morning of February 1, 1964, in Paris.
A few years later, Perry started entering Granpa in shows sponsored by the International Cat Association under the “household pet” category. To his great surprise, the feline, who was already into his second decade and thus considered old, earned the rank of supreme grand master, the highest possible award for pets in his division.
As his age reached the high twenties, Granpa’s fame grew. Each year for his birthday, he got a vanilla cake topped with tuna and broccoli icing. Not surprisingly, he was generally the only one to partake. The rest of his unusual diet, however, would have passed muster with most human diners: Breakfast consisted of Egg Beaters, chopped bacon, broccoli or asparagus, and coffee. He also enjoyed either jelly or mayonnaise smeared on his food; he would choose which one every morning by putting his paw on the jar he preferred.
Fortified by lots of vegetables, Granpa persisted into his early thirties, which is roughly 150 in cat years. Finally, on April 1, 1998, he gave up the ghost after a long bout with pneumonia. After an elaborate funeral, during which Perry’s numerous other cats viewed Granpa as he lay in state inside a tiny, lace-lined coffin, he was interred in his owner’s backyard pet cemetery, which already contained about two dozen cats. Roughly four hundred fans from around the world sent cards, flowers, and other mementos.
His final honor was, of necessity, posthumous. The 2000 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records duly recognized the wizened French expatriate as the oldest cat who ever lived. His record just barely squeezes out the previous record holder, an English cat named Ma who survived for thirty-four years and one day. It just goes to show that in longevity, as in any other endeavor, persistence is key.
OTHER FELINES
OF DISTINCTION
HAMLET: A Canadian cat who escaped from his pet carrier during a flight from Toronto. Hamlet remained at large on the plane for seven weeks, during which he flew a staggering 370,000 miles, making him history’s most-traveled feline.
ANDY: A pet of U.S. Senator Ken Myer, Andy survived a sixteen-story (roughly 200-foot) fall from an apartment balcony and survived.
CHOUX: During World War I, a French soldier wanted to tell a German soldier who was married to his cousin that he’d become a father. So he tied a note to a kitten named Choux, who marched blithely across no–man’s land to deliver the birth announcement.
PATSY: Accompanied famed aviator Charles Lindbergh on many flights, but not on the solo jaunt across the Atlantic that made him famous. “It’s too dangerous a journey to risk a cat’s life,” Lindbergh reportedly said.
DUSTY: A monument to motherhood, this Texas feline bore 420 kittens in her lifetime, making her the most prolific cat in recorded history. Her record has lasted more than half a century.