To the disappointment of everyone but schoolchildren’s supposedly finished homework, dogs have a pretty limited time on this earth. Even with a pooch that’s the picture of perfect health, two decades is usually pushing it.
Now, a long pet lifespan can be a curse unto itself, as any turtle owner can tell you, but most people would prefer a couple more years with their best bud. What, though, is the longest a canine has ever managed to cling to existence on this harsh earth? Or better put, who is the furriest Methuselah of them all?
The oldest recorded dog in the Guinness Book of World Records is a pooch named Bobi. Bobi, a lovely dog in Portugal, managed to hang on for over 31 human years, an absolute eternity in the dog world, before passing away in October 2023. In the classic dog-year conversion of 7:1, that would make Bobi the equivalent of a whopping 217 years old. That’s beyond healthy and hearty, and into the realm of the mystical. If you made it past 200, people would be asking if you knew any spells.
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Here, however, controversy rears up on its hind legs. Apparently not satisfied to leave entirely wholesome records to simply exist, Guinness rescinded Bobi’s record in February 2024. They cited insufficient proof, which, sure. Still, is it totally necessary to take away an honor from a dead dog? Questionable. With Bobi stripped of the title, it reverted to the previous record holder: an Australian cattle dog named Bluey, who lived for 29 years between 1910 and 1939.
I was skeptical that if definitive records were their bellwether, that a dog from the early 1900s would meet their standards, but apparently Bluey’s age is well-accepted because the whole town she lived in loved her so much they all remembered when she died. Which is lovely. Well, outside of the death thing.
So, I offer you two answers, depending on how much you trust the word of a sad man in Portugal: Bobi, or Bluey. A low, respectful whistle to both.
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