Professor Doerak delivers the purr-fect message of love
The University of Groningen in the Netherlands has a post-graduate cat named Professor Doerak strolling through its campus grounds.
PETALING JAYA: The University of Groningen in the Netherlands is becoming famous for a wise and charismatic professor, who walks among its students and staff, exchanging pleasantries with all on a daily basis.
He is however unusually cheeky, earning the name Doerak, which translates to “cheeky fellow” in Dutch.
Brandishing a student identification card around his neck, Professor Doerak is an eight-year-old, Maine Coon-Persian mix, who looks just as majestic as he is friendly.
His university adventures began when he started visiting the campus grounds with his cat buddy, Mickey some six years ago.
Unfortunately, in the spring of 2018, Mickey left for the Rainbow Bridge, leaving behind a forlorn Doerak, who began searching for his deceased buddy in lecture theatres.
So stricken with grief was he that he lost his appetite to eat. When the campus newspaper published the story of Doerak, university staff and students went out of their way to console him with warm cuddles and hugs.
This outpouring of emotional support made a huge difference in the little professor’s life and soon his broken heart began to mend.
Today, Doerak resides with his guardians, Sandra and Ekko Ros, and during bedtime, snuggles up between the couple.
Every morning, he treks a short distance to the university, waiting at the entrance for hugs from the students streaming in.
For the rest of the day, this “Casanova” saunters around the campus grounds, preferring to hang around the female students, who shower him with hugs and kisses and pats aplenty.
It is estimated that he gets about 150 hugs a day, a rather hectic working life for a cat that necessitates five breaks for food and power naps.
His diet consists mostly of Dutch dishes, namely “eierbal” and “frikandel”. Doerak also enjoys a British liquid cat snack called “lick-e-lick”, gifted to him by a feline friend, Rolf from the University of Warwick.
When not eating or napping, he can be found sitting on the parked bicycles of law students, near the university’s Harmony Building.
Besides students and lecturers, Doerak is particularly loved by the university’s cleaning crew, who gladly cuddle him and clean up the tufts of fur he leaves behind.
When left to his own devices, Doerak indulges in mischief. So immersed is he in his misadventures that he has ended up locked in lecture theatres before. Other times he happily disrupts classes by walking on students’ tables when saying “hello”.
In one dreadful episode, Doerak climbed into a car’s engine compartment to warm himself during a particularly cold winter.
Oblivious to his presence, the driver was already on the highway when the alarm was raised and an Animal Ambulance was called to extract him, covered with engine oil and looking somewhat shaken.
To keep him safe, Doerak now wears a GPS-chip to keep track of his whereabouts. The flood of security camera footage show the exceptionally lazy Doerak snoozing in lecture halls for hours, waking up only to play with a kitten, Tukkie.
His caretakers told FMT, “The students adore him and campus staff are very happy there’s a university cat on campus because it creates solidarity among the academic community.”
According to them, the cat has brought the University of Groningen exposure and for that, the campus staff and board of directors love him.
Doerak even has an Instagram account, set up in September 2018 with the purpose of telling the world about his adventures. Today, many other campus cat owners from around the world have begun to share their heartwarming and heartbreaking stories with Doerak.
These campus cats all form a spirit of solidarity within academic communities and are rightfully loved by students and staff for it.
Other than being the subject of regular university newspaper articles and having a book about campus cats credited to his name, Doerak also uses his celebrity status for the greater good.
What was meant to be an account made purely for “fun” now helps to create awareness on the state of animal welfare in the Netherlands.
All proceeds made from the sale of Doerak merchandise, including the aforementioned book, is donated to the local animal ambulance organisation that rescued Doerak before.
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Asked if the university gave him permission to roam, his caretakers said, “Professor Doerak has never asked for permission because that’s just not what cats do. Doerak just entered the university and said he was there to stay.”