List of animals awarded human credentials

Colby Nolan was a house cat who was awarded an MBA in 2004 by Trinity Southern University, a Dallas-based diploma mill, sparking a fraud lawsuit by the Pennsylvania attorney general's office.

On the animal's application, the agents claimed that the cat had previously taken courses at a community college, worked at a fast-food restaurant, babysat, and maintained a newspaper route.

[8] In 2007, the cat Henrietta, despite having been dead for around a year, was successfully registered as a certified member of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants by her owner Ben Goldacre, doctor and author of the Bad Science column in the Guardian newspaper and subsequent book.

While the diploma was deemed insufficient to gain Kitty admission to local colleges, the state attorney general's office planned to investigate the institution.

[10] On December 10, 1967, The Times reported that Oliver Greenhalgh had been accepted as a fellow of the English Association of Estate Agents and Valuers, after a payment of eleven guineas (his two references were not verified).

[11][12] Oreo C. Collins (born around 2007) is a tuxedo cat who gained notoriety when she received a diploma from Jefferson High School Online in 2009, although her age was misrepresented in order to qualify.

[24] In 2009, Dr. Ben Mays, a veterinarian in Clinton, Arkansas, obtained a degree in "theriogenology/animal reproduction" from Belford University on behalf of an English bulldog named Maxwell Sniffingwell.

He made up credentials including "past associate of the Shenton Park Institute for Canine Refuge Studies" (where she was a rescue dog) and submitted her application for posts on the editorial boards of some predatory medical journals.

The BBC current affairs programme Newsnight reported in 2013 that the dog, named "Peter Smith" on the faked CV for a management consultant, was offered an MBA by the university's Accreditation of Previous Experiential Learning board based on his "made-up work experience and a fictitious undergraduate degree" just four days after applying for the course.

[29] The May 30, 2007 episode of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation comedy show The Chaser's War on Everything documented host Chas Licciardello applying online and obtaining a medical degree for his dog Sonny from the diploma mill Ashwood University.

In a public statement, an Almeda University representative wrote, "He completed an application that included a background of the following: Eight-years tutoring pre-K children, curriculum design and development, teaching coping skills, and volunteer coaching".