Princpal Cookson’s beloved cat, Murry, is competing for the title of America’s Favorite Pet

Ari Collins
eSomethin staff

In 2024, many Americans have their minds fixated on the upcoming state primaries and presidential election in November. Electing candidates to run for the presidency may be daunting to some. But it is not all so stressful; citizens of Perrysburg have a much more entertaining race to watch by virtue of PHS Principal Aaron Cookson.

Principal Cookson’s beloved family cat, Murry, needs your help to win the title of America’s Favorite Pet.

“I was scrolling one morning on social media, actually Facebook, and I saw there was this organization who was putting together a competition for America’s favorite pet,” said Cookson. He thought about his cat and decided to enter the contest.

Murry, the cat, is a Bengal cat, which is a mixed breed that combines the American Shorthair and an Asian Leopard. Cookson says he looks exotic and has many attributes of a leopard, including rosettes on his sides and tiger stripes on his legs.

“Murry is a really cool cat. He’s kind of a mix of a cat and a dog. He has positive attributes of both, not really any of the negative attributes of either. He is very friendly, he’s playful, he’s curious, he’s smart.”

“I would appreciate votes, for sure, obviously not necessary,” says Cookson. “If we want to have a northwest Ohio feline celebrity, we could definitely use the backing of the PHS student body. He would definitely appreciate it much more than I would.”

The contest has an extensive voting process that occurs over a couple of months. It progresses weekly on different levels. In the first week of the contest, Cookson reported, Murry was first in his group of around 52 cats.

“I’m not sure how many groups there are—like if there are ten groups of 50 cats or 20 groups of 50 cats, but he’s number one in his group right now,” he said. “It will get narrowed down week by week until the end of March. It’ll go from a large pool, that we’re in right now. After this pool, we narrow it to the top 20 cats for a week, and then the following week it’ll go to the top 15.”

The winners of the contest, one cat and one dog, will receive a cover shoot and feature article written about them. Individuals may vote once per day, but there are many different methods.

“You can vote through a Facebook login, to prove that you’re human. There’s another way you can go, with a credit card, which I wouldn’t suggest that unless you want to. It’s a legitimate company, but I’m not part of that company so I can’t speak to that.”

Cookson is optimistic about the contest and expresses that he is excited to see what happens. “Hopefully we don’t have voter fatigue. We gotta have good stamina and support Murry through his quest to be America’s favorite pet.”

Interested in voting for Murry? You can vote here at https://americasfavpet.com/2024/murry-4917.

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