Didga

A Tweed Heads shelter adoption

Didga, a tabby domestic short-haired cat, was adopted in 2011 from an animal shelter in Tweed Heads, New South Wales by Robert Dollwet, a Florida-born professional animal trainer who had relocated to Australia in 2008 after a career training dogs for film, television, and behavioural-therapy work. Dollwet selected the kitten specifically as a clicker-training subject, applying the positive-reinforcement techniques he had developed in dog work to a feline subject. He documented the early training on the YouTube channel CatMantoo, which he opened in 2009 and which by 2017 had passed 250,000 subscribers.

The 30 September 2017 Guinness record

On 30 September 2017 Didga performed 24 distinct tricks in 60 seconds at Dollwet's Tweed Heads training facility, supervised by Guinness adjudicators and recorded on video for verification. The tricks included a high-five, a barrel jump, a paw-shake, an over-the-arm jump, a sit-up beg, a spin, a roll-over, and a skateboard push-off. The previous most-tricks-by-a-cat record had been held by an American cat at twenty tricks; Didga's twenty-four set a new Guinness title that as of 2024 has not been beaten. Footage of the run was distributed by Reuters and ran on news services in approximately forty countries.

Skateboarding, surfing, and broader appearances

Beyond the trick-count record Didga is also notable as a clicker-trained cat that skateboards and surfs; Dollwet has filmed her riding a longboard on Tweed Heads suburban streets and standing on a foam-board in the small surf at the Tweed Heads beach. She has appeared on Australian morning television (Channel Seven's Sunrise, 2018), on the BBC One nature programme Big Cats About the House in 2019, and in clips on the YouTube channels Animal Planet and BuzzFeed. Dollwet has used Didga's public profile to advocate for shelter adoption and for positive-reinforcement training of cats, contrary to the common view that cats are not trainable in the way dogs are.