Farmington Hills couple Will and Lauren Powers recently announced some "awesome news" they had to wait over a year to share with the community. Their family cats Arcturus Aldebaran, a Savannah, and Cygnus Regulus, a Maine Coon, have each broken a Guinness World Record.
Arcturus is the tallest domestic cat, standing at 19.05 inches (48.4cm) and Cygnus – known as the "Featherduster" or "Door draft blocker" – has the longest tail measured to be 17.58 inches (44.66cm). They are both listed in the official 2018 Guinness World Record book as well as the 2018 Guinness Amazing Animals book.
The official vet measurements were done by Caitlin Szurek, DVM of Animal Kingdom Veterinary Clinic in Ann Arbor, according to Will Powers' Facebook page. Will wrote that each cat holds both the "Ever" and "Living" records also.
"Even crazier," wrote Will, "is that these records have stood for a very long time and each cat broke their record at only slightly over one year old. Since that time they have continued to grow and their height and tail length is far more than it was when we first measured them. They still aren't even full grown now. If the records ever get challenged we will remeasure them and take them back. They are now vastly beyond their original records and continue to grow even more."
Will attributes the health of his cats to a non-traditional diet, which he shares with his followers on Facebook at http://gaybe.am/z0.
"The probability of one family having two separate all time world records on two totally different unrelated animals of different breeds is astronomically small. However it was no accident," he wrote on Facebook. "Despite the popular method of the 'Organic/Raw/All-Natural' diet recommended nowadays, our boys were raised on GMO-ridden, synthetic, chemical-based diets that I designed for them to eat since kittenhood. I admit this because natural is not always better. We're super pro-science people. Both Lauren and I are doctors, and biochemistry, healthy eating, and real hardcore evidence-based science is in our blood."
Arcturus – who weighs about 30 pounds and eats around a pound and a half of food daily – was bred by Stacee Dallas of Starfell Savannahs in Traverse City. (He's the son of Myst and Dream). Cygnus was bred by Katherine Greenman of Wildchild Maine Coons in Jackson. Cygnus is named for Regulus Rigel, the Powers family cat who died from nasal cancer at the age of 7, right after getting Arcturus as a kitten.
"Arcturus was so incredibly high energy that Sirius was having a hard time with him (besides being really depressed at the death of his brother)," said Will. "We got a kitten [Cygnus] for our kitten so that they could all be happy."
Giving Back to Their Feline Friends
Expect both cats to be doing meet and greets in the coming weeks, signing "Pawtographs" and taking selfies in exchange for donations for the Ferndale Cat Shelter where Will is the current president.
"They've raised thousands for underprivileged Detroit cats. The titles are only going to help us more with that," said Will, noting that Sirius Altair was given a better life because of the "incredibly hard work" done by the local rescue in Ferndale.
"Sirius doesn't have any world records, but he's a wonderful rescue cat I've had for almost a decade," he said. "He sleeps between us every night, and is the most affectionate cat I've ever seen."
