A Minnesota Cat Named Baby Celebrates His Thirty-Sixth Birthday while an English Pub Cat Named Daisy Turns Twenty-Two

Baby

"We're going to make him the beneficiary. He'll outlive us."

-- Al Palusky

Cats live short lives. For domestics, the average is only about fifteen years. Ferals, on the other hand, are lucky if they live to see their fourth birthday.

Some cats are able, however, to beat the odds. There is, for example, a black cat named Baby from Duluth, Minnesota, whose owners insist is thirty-six-years-old.

Al and Mary Palusky claim that they rescued him from a group of yobs way back in 1970 after they had imprisoned him in a garbage can and were throwing firecrackers in on him. Al credits an occasional cheese puff and plenty of exercise for Baby's longevity.

"He'll tear around the house running up and down and across things and his tail gets big and his back goes up and he takes off running and then he jumps in his bed and falls asleep," Al related to WCSH-TV of Portland, Maine, on November 24th. (See "Thirty-Six-Year-Old Cat Still Going Strong.") 

Although some cats have reportedly made it into their fourth decade, these claims have never been verified. Nonetheless, if Palusky and his wife are being truthful Baby is unquestionably one of the world's oldest living cats.

Although no one knows how much longer Baby will be around, Al is already making plans for his future care. "We're going to make him the beneficiary. He'll outlive us," he told WCSH-TV. 

At the Hen and Chicken Pub in Southwater, fifty-eight kilometers south of London, a cat named Daisy celebrated her twenty-second birthday on November 24th.

Daisy and Chris Marks

"She's been here all her life and although the pub has had different management couples they've all had Daisy," co-owner Chris Marks told the West Sussex Observer on November 24th. (See "Daisy -- Oldest Cat?") "The current landlords, Roy and Maureen Bailee, have a couple of dogs, but the dogs have had to get used to Daisy and now she rules them."

Daisy, who spends most of her time in the bar, loves wool and will reportedly jump on any sweater or coat made of it that is left unattended. She also loves to sit by the fire although one day she got too close and her faux pas cost her most of her valuable whiskers.

Although for her twenty-first birthday regulars were treated to a drink on the house, a much less subdued celebration was planned for this year. "... I expect she'll just celebrate her twenty-second with a few extra prawns," Marks predicted.

Photos: WCSH-TV (Baby) and West Sussex Observer (Daisy and Chris Marks).