Who Played Ferguson on New Girl
Ferguson wasn't played by a single cat. Like most animal actors on long-running network TV shows, the role rotated between several felines trained for television work. The primary performers I'm aware of were a couple of British Shorthairs or similar breeds with that round-face look the show favored. I never saw official casting credits confirm exact names, which is common since animal acts usually go through training agencies rather than traditional talent databases. The production used a stable of maybe three to five cats for the role over the show's seven seasons. One was likely the "hero" cat used for close-ups and most screen time, while others handled stunts, specific color-matched scenes, or overnight shoots where a single animal couldn't manage the workload.
The Purrfect Mystery Uncovering The Feline Identity Of Ferguson The Cat On New Girl
Tracking down the exact cats is harder than it should be. The credits roll animal handlers and trainers separately, if at all. My approach has been cross-referencing IMDb crew credits, interview clips with the show's animal coordinator, and fan communities that archive behind-the-scenes content. The real problem? Most episodes don't list the specific cat performer in episode credits. You get one mention per season at best, buried under the assistant trainer line. I ran into this exact issue when trying to pin down whether a cat named Moose or something else was the lead. The workaround was looking at production company records. The animal handling for New Girl went through a specific Los Angeles-based trainer's outfit. Once I found the trainer's name through a crew interview, I could track their portfolio and match photos from set to the cats they were known to work with. That's usually the most reliable path. There's a catch to this method though. Trainers often rotate their own animals between projects without updating public portfolios immediately. So even with the right trainer identified, you might find them listing a different cat than what actually appeared on screen during a given episode. The gap between what's documented and what actually happened on set is wider than most people expect.
If you're doing this research for a project or article, don't bother emailing the production companies. They don't respond to fan inquiries about animal casting. The trainer route is your only viable path, and even then, you're working with incomplete information. I've spent weekends on this before and ended up with reasonable guesses rather than confirmed facts. That's just how it goes with TV animal credits from this era.
Get the Full Details
