ON OCTOBER 21, 2023, Bobithe dog died. At 31 years and 163 days, he was old. So old, in fact, that eight months earlier, Bobi had been crowned the "oldest dog ever" by Guinness World Records-the authority when it comes to these kinds of things.
Or is it? Shortly after Bobi's death, experts started raising questions about the Portuguese mastiff's advanced years. "Not a single one of my veterinary colleagues believe Bobi was actually 31 years old," veterinarian Danny Chambers told The Guardian. "For the Guinness Book of Records to maintain their credibility and authority in the eyes of the veterinary profession, they really need to publish some irrefutable evidence."
The reputation of the world's foremost Irish dry stout turned recordkeeper was on the line here. Someone needed to find the truth. That someone, it turned out, was me.
A quick email to Guinness World Records would clear this up, I thought. This is the organization that verified the fastest time to eat a banana with no hands (17.82 seconds) and the longest human tunnel traveled through by a skateboarding dog (30 pairs of legs). For more than 60 years, Guinness World Records has cataloged the stinkiest flowers, widest mouths, and largest chicken nuggets. It had the receipts for the world's oldest horses, cats, llamas (in captivity), and customer complaints. Dating the world's oldest dog would be child's play.
"We're aware of the questions surrounding the legitimacy of the record and are reviewing them," wrote Alina Polianskaya, a public relations executive at Guinness World Records, in response to my first email. I sent a second email asking what this review process might involve. "I'll come back to you when we have further info to share," Polianskaya replied. In response to my third email, she wrote, "We won't have anything further to share until the review has concluded." Polianskaya did not respond to my fourth.
Luckily, Guinness left a trail for me to follow. In its February 2023 post announcing Bobi as the world's oldest living dog, it mentioned that Bobi's age had been verified by SIAC-a Portuguese government database for the registration of cats, dogs, and ferrets.
"We are able to confirm that indeed. a dog named Bobi was registered with SIAC on the 3rd of July, 2022," Eurico Cabral, a coordinator at SIAC, told me. Case closed, I thought. Then Cabral dropped a bombshell. "At the time, the animal's holder declared that it had been born in 1992, but we have no registration or data that can confirm or deny this statement," he wrote. Now this was intriguing. The Guinness post claimed that SIAC had verified Bobi's age, but all the agency could confirm was that Bobi's owner told them that the dog was born in 1992.
Cabral's revelation had blown the case wide open. It was time to bring the big dogs in.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1450523853/1707144227/articles/uBPa1o2mZ1707220753988/lvn__XLYT1707220920619.jpg]
Enikő Kubinyi, an expert in dog longevity at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, says accurately aging dogs is extremely difficult. Records can be unreliable, and it's tricky to estimate based on physical appearance alone.
Still, we have some pretty good data on how long most dogs live. Among 12,039 dogs buried or cremated in Tokyo between 2012 and 2015, mutts tended to have a higher life expectancy than purebreds, at 15.1 years on average. One dog in the Japanese data lived to age 25. In a data set of 30,563 dogs that died between 2016 and 2020 in the UK, the average life expectancy across breeds was 11.2 years. Only 23 were older than 20 when they crossed the rainbow bridge.
Kubinyi herself has studied two ultralong-lived Hungarian dogs-one aged 22 and the other aged 27. In both cases, the dogs' ages were vouched for by adults who had known them since their birth, and like Bobi, the Hungarian dogs roamed around freely and had plenty of contact with other dogs and humansgood indicators of a healthy life.
One thing about Bobi raised her suspicions, though: From the photographs she had seen, Bobi seemed to be overweight. Rotund dogs rarely make it to extremely old ages, she says.
I had another question for Kubinyi. In its article about Bobi, Guinness had posted photos of the dog when he was much younger. In those photos, the pattern of Bobi's fur seemed to differ from that of the older Bobi. Could a dog's coat shift over time? For that question, Kubinyi said, I would have to consult...
Or is it? Shortly after Bobi's death, experts started raising questions about the Portuguese mastiff's advanced years. "Not a single one of my veterinary colleagues believe Bobi was actually 31 years old," veterinarian Danny Chambers told The Guardian. "For the Guinness Book of Records to maintain their credibility and authority in the eyes of the veterinary profession, they really need to publish some irrefutable evidence."
The reputation of the world's foremost Irish dry stout turned recordkeeper was on the line here. Someone needed to find the truth. That someone, it turned out, was me.
A quick email to Guinness World Records would clear this up, I thought. This is the organization that verified the fastest time to eat a banana with no hands (17.82 seconds) and the longest human tunnel traveled through by a skateboarding dog (30 pairs of legs). For more than 60 years, Guinness World Records has cataloged the stinkiest flowers, widest mouths, and largest chicken nuggets. It had the receipts for the world's oldest horses, cats, llamas (in captivity), and customer complaints. Dating the world's oldest dog would be child's play.
"We're aware of the questions surrounding the legitimacy of the record and are reviewing them," wrote Alina Polianskaya, a public relations executive at Guinness World Records, in response to my first email. I sent a second email asking what this review process might involve. "I'll come back to you when we have further info to share," Polianskaya replied. In response to my third email, she wrote, "We won't have anything further to share until the review has concluded." Polianskaya did not respond to my fourth.
Luckily, Guinness left a trail for me to follow. In its February 2023 post announcing Bobi as the world's oldest living dog, it mentioned that Bobi's age had been verified by SIAC-a Portuguese government database for the registration of cats, dogs, and ferrets.
"We are able to confirm that indeed. a dog named Bobi was registered with SIAC on the 3rd of July, 2022," Eurico Cabral, a coordinator at SIAC, told me. Case closed, I thought. Then Cabral dropped a bombshell. "At the time, the animal's holder declared that it had been born in 1992, but we have no registration or data that can confirm or deny this statement," he wrote. Now this was intriguing. The Guinness post claimed that SIAC had verified Bobi's age, but all the agency could confirm was that Bobi's owner told them that the dog was born in 1992.
Cabral's revelation had blown the case wide open. It was time to bring the big dogs in.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1450523853/1707144227/articles/uBPa1o2mZ1707220753988/lvn__XLYT1707220920619.jpg]
Enikő Kubinyi, an expert in dog longevity at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, says accurately aging dogs is extremely difficult. Records can be unreliable, and it's tricky to estimate based on physical appearance alone.
Still, we have some pretty good data on how long most dogs live. Among 12,039 dogs buried or cremated in Tokyo between 2012 and 2015, mutts tended to have a higher life expectancy than purebreds, at 15.1 years on average. One dog in the Japanese data lived to age 25. In a data set of 30,563 dogs that died between 2016 and 2020 in the UK, the average life expectancy across breeds was 11.2 years. Only 23 were older than 20 when they crossed the rainbow bridge.
Kubinyi herself has studied two ultralong-lived Hungarian dogs-one aged 22 and the other aged 27. In both cases, the dogs' ages were vouched for by adults who had known them since their birth, and like Bobi, the Hungarian dogs roamed around freely and had plenty of contact with other dogs and humansgood indicators of a healthy life.
One thing about Bobi raised her suspicions, though: From the photographs she had seen, Bobi seemed to be overweight. Rotund dogs rarely make it to extremely old ages, she says.
I had another question for Kubinyi. In its article about Bobi, Guinness had posted photos of the dog when he was much younger. In those photos, the pattern of Bobi's fur seemed to differ from that of the older Bobi. Could a dog's coat shift over time? For that question, Kubinyi said, I would have to consult...
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WIRED (Digital) - 1 Issue, March - April 2024