The parents of fallen soldier Justin Rollins adopted the dog that spent his final days with him in Iraq.

A two-faced “Janus” cat had entered the Guinness World Records at 12 years old, for being the longest living cat of his kind. Frank and Louie’s condition is a birth abnormality, and most cats born that way do not live long.The record holding cat is doing well and living in the area near Worcester MA with his pet-mom Marty, who has a background in veterinary medicine. Marty was working at Tufts Veterinary Medical School when she got Frank and Louis, who was brought in at one day old to be euthanized.

Frank and Louie the cat was born with two faces, two mouths, two noses, three eyes — and lots of doubts about his future.

Now, 12 years after Marty Stevens rescued him from being euthanized because of his condition, the exotic blue-eyed rag doll cat is not only thriving, but has also made it into the 2012 edition of Guinness World Records as the longest-surviving member of a group known as Janus cats, named for a Roman god with two faces.

“Every day is kind of a blessing; being 12 and normal life expectancy when they have this condition is one to four days,” Stevens said, stroking Frank and Louie’s soft fur as he sat on her lap purring. “So, he’s ahead of the game; every day I just thank God I still have him.”

Frank and Louie’s breeder had taken him to the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, where Stevens was working at the time, to be euthanized when he was just a day old. Stevens offered to take him home, but experts told her not to get her hopes up.
Janus cats almost never survive, and most have congenital defects, including a cleft palate that makes it difficult for them to nurse and often causes them to slowly starve or get milk in their lungs and die of pneumonia. The condition is the result of a genetic defect that triggers excessive production of a certain kind of protein.

But Frank and Louie did not suffer from most of the common Janus problems. Stevens used feeding tubes to nourish him for three months, hoping that would also save him from the danger of choking on food going down two mouths.

It turned out she didn’t have to worry about him choking, because Frank and Louie used just one of his mouths to eat.

“The condition itself is very rare, and I think that the fact that this cat became an adult, a healthy adult, is remarkable,” said Dr. Armelle deLaforcade, an associate professor at Cummings and head of the emergency services section.

Colleagues at the veterinary hospital told Stevens that trying to raise Frank and Louie might not be good for him — or her.

Still, she “stood firm and stood by the cat, and I’m really glad she did because this cat really has fewer problems than many cats that have very normal anatomies,” deLaforcade said.

Frank and Louie’s two faces have a complicated relationship. Both noses work, but one mouth does not have a lower jaw and isn’t connected to his one esophagus, so he can’t eat with it. Stevens discovered that only after the cat got an MRI later in life.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/30/house-cat-with-2-faces-lives-12-years-sets-record/#ixzz1hT0NQXIY

Oskar is completely blind (born without formed eyeballs) so his adopters gave him some balls with bells inside. As you can tell, he can “see” them by using his ears!

Music provided by SMITH’s CLOUD from Lincoln, Nebraska. The tracked is called A CHANGE OF DAYS.

via Chris Anderson

Video: http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibits/2c1f_owney_movie.html#1

Owney and an unidentified Albany, New York, letter carrier

Railway mail clerks considered the dog a good luck charm. At a time when train wrecks were all too common, no train Owney rode was ever in a wreck. The Railway mail clerks adopted Owney as their unofficial mascot, marking his travels by placing medals and tags on his collar. Each time Owney returned home to Albany, the clerks there saved the tags.

Owney poses in a mail train with his mail clerk friends

Postmaster General John Wanamaker was one of Owney’s fans. When he learned that the dog’s collar was weighed down by an ever-growing number of tags, he gave Owney a harness on which to display the “trophies.”

On April 9, 1894, a writer for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that “Nearly every place he stopped Owney received an additional tag, until now he wears a big bunch. When he jogs along, they jingle like the bells on a junk wagon.”

In June, Owney boarded a mail train for Toledo, Ohio. While he was there, he was shown to a newspaper reporter by a postal clerk. Owney became ill tempered and although the exact circumstances were not satisfactorily reported, Owney died in Toledo of a bullet wound on June 11, 1897. Mail clerks raised funds to have Owney preserved, and he was given to the Post Office Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1911, the department transferred Owney to the Smithsonian Institution, where he has remained ever since. Owney can be seen on display in the National Postal Museum’s atrium, wearing his harness and surrounded by several of his tags.
Source: The National Postal Museum

Fum is a lovely black cat and Gebra a kind barn owl.

Song: “Deixa’m dir una cosa” by Sopa de Cabra.

A video from the American Humane Society.