Cat with two faces earns spot in world record book

WORCESTER, Mass. – 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 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.

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.

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.

The animal can see out of only two of his three eyes. The middle one can’t even blink and makes Frank and Louie appear to be staring even when his other eyes are closed.

“You can look at a cat like this as either a very strange and bad omen, or you can look at this cat as a miracle,” said Dr. Armelle deLaforcade, an associate professor at Cummings.