100 Cats Who Changed Civilization (19 page)

SPARKY

THE CAT WHO SURVIVED
11,000 VOLTS

Cats supposedly have nine lives, but sometimes they don’t use them wisely. Such was the case for one overly curious British tomcat. The feline made national headlines in March 1998, when he wandered into an electrical substation near his home in the town of Hull. There he somehow managed to short out the equipment, taking an 11,000-volt blast in the process, which is normally enough juice to kill a cat, a human being, or a herd of elephants, for that matter.

Yet somehow the cat survived. A Yorkshire Electricity employee spotted him shortly after the accident, extricated the limp, smoking feline from the equipment, and got him medical attention. His miraculous survival earned him television and newspaper coverage across Great Britain, along with a new nickname: Sparky.

Sparky did not get away from the encounter scot-free, however. His fur and paws were severely burned, his front leg injured, his ears paralyzed, and his whiskers incinerated. But his new look wasn’t enough to prevent his horrified owners, Steve Bateman and Tricia Watts, from recognizing his picture in the paper. Explaining that his real name was Soxy, they stepped forward to claim their newfound celebrity.

The public, however, refused to relinquish its grip. Soxy/Sparky became a regular at public events and a popular mascot for charitable causes. He even won a national cat of the year award. “He was very loyal and affectionate, and he loved all the attention he got,” Bateman told the BBC.

The only thing he lacked was the ability to learn from his mistakes. Despite the fact that his poor judgment and survival skills had been amply demonstrated, Bateman and Watts continued to let their pet roam the neighborhood. Finally, in September 1999, Sparky didn’t return home. Suspecting the worst, his owners asked the folks at the electrical substation to poke around the equipment. Sure enough, they found Sparky. But this time his luck had run out.

In a heartbeat, the cat who had been a symbol of survival became a symbol of something far more important: The need to keep one’s pets indoors. The cat who couldn’t leave well enough alone will never roam again. He’s confined for eternity to a small grave in his owners’ garden.

TRIXY

THE CAT WHO BROKE INTO
THE TOWER OF LONDON

Cats have many fascinating and endearing qualities. However, steadfast, unyielding loyalty usually isn’t one of them. That’s what makes the story of Trixy, the favorite pet of Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton (1573–1624), so amazing. If her story can be believed, she displayed a level of devotion few
humans
can aspire to, let alone felines.

In his day, her master, the earl, was a well-known adventurer and patron of the arts. Shakespeare received both his encouragement and his funds. Unfortunately, the man also had a notoriously short temper and a penchant for backing the wrong horse during political disputes. His most disastrous miscalculation was joining with the Earl of Essex in a plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I. For this he earned a death sentence, which was shortly converted to life imprisonment in the Tower of London.

The earl began his sentence in 1601. While he cooled his heels in a tiny cell, his black and white cat, Trixy, grew agitated by his continued absence from Southampton House, the family seat. One day she simply walked away from the palatial estate, made her way via alleys and rooftops to the heart
of London, located her master’s cell, and entered it via a chimney. She spent the next two years at the earl’s side, until Elizabeth’s death and the ascension of James I led to Wriothesley and Trixy’s release.

It seems nearly impossible that a pampered country cat could have made it all the way to the Tower on foot. How, exactly, did she know her master was there? Some surmise that she got some help from her human friends. Perhaps, it is said, the earl’s wife smuggled Trixy into the prison.

No one, at this late date, will ever know the exact circumstances. But one thing is certain. The earl was greatly impressed by his little cat’s fortitude and fidelity. Shortly after his release from the Tower, he commissioned a portrait of himself by painter John de Critz. It features Wriothesley garbed in the full finery of an English noble, standing alongside Trixy, who wears an appropriately steadfast scowl—just the sort of look one would expect from so intrepid a cat.

TRIM

THE FIRST CAT TO
CIRCUMNAVIGATE AUSTRALIA

Landlubbers think dogs are man’s best friend. But sailors pay their highest respect to cats. Their uncanny balance serves them well on pitching decks, and their hunting prowess keeps the rodents out of the biscuits. But even given this innate mutual respect, the relationship between famed explorer Matthew Flinders and his cat, Trim, was exceptional.

The two met in 1797 on the high seas. Both served aboard the HMS
Reliance
. One day Trim, who was still a kitten, was washed overboard—yet he somehow managed to swim back to the ship, snag a rope with his claws, and use it to climb aboard. Flinders, impressed, made him his own.

From 1801 to 1803, Flinders, now in command of the
Investigator
, slowly circumnavigated Australia, becoming the first person to do so. Trim, who never left his side, became the first
feline
to do so. But when the mission ended and the duo tried to get back to England, their return ship, the
Porpoise
, ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef. Incredibly, Flinders (with Trim at his side) navigated one of the wrecked ship’s boats some 700 miles over open sea to Sydney, where he arranged for the rescue of the rest of the crew.

Flinders tried again to reach England on the schooner
Cumberland
. But he put in at the French-controlled island of Mauritius, not knowing that England and France were at war. He was thrown in a local prison for seven years. It was there that he and Trim finally parted. The cat kept him company for a while, until one day he simply disappeared—captured and eaten, Flinders guessed, by some of the island’s underfed slave population.

When Flinders finally returned to England, he authored a book called
A Voyage to Terra Australis
, which popularized the use of the word
Australia
. Today his name can be found on natural landmarks and public buildings all over that continent, including a statue at Sydney’s Mitchell Library. Behind it, perched on a window ledge, sits a bronze statue of Trim. It includes a tribute from his grieving master, who called him “the best and most illustrious of his race, the most affectionate of friends, faithful of servants, and best of creatures.”

GRANPA

THE WORLD’S OLDEST CAT

These days, pampered felines enjoy the best food, accommodations, and medical care money can buy. So it isn’t unusual to hear of well-preserved pets who live for twenty years or more. But few—actually, none—can match the record for longevity achieved by Granpa, who lived to the slightly overripe age of thirty-four years, two months, and four hours—good enough to earn him a spot in the
Guinness Book of World Records
.

Granpa’s life was as strange as it was long. A rare hairless sphinx, he was taken to the Humane Society of Travis County (Texas) on January 16, 1970, by a good Samaritan who found him running loose near a busy intersection. He was almost immediately adopted by Jake Perry, a plumber, part-time cat show enthusiast, and feline rescuer. Figuring such an unusual cat must have a worried owner somewhere, he put up posters about him around town. Months later he received a call from a Frenchwoman, who in December 1969 had come to the United States to visit her daughter. While there her cat, Pierre, had escaped through an unlatched screen door, never to be seen again.

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.