Guinness World Recordsis in the clientele of validating some sensory claims , from who can break the most can seat with their mind in one moment to the world ’s loudestcatpurr . But now the venerable initiation find itself face with a crisis : Can a world ’s oldestdogever really be declared ?
The trouble bulge out whenWIREDwriter Matt Reynolds publish an investigatory man in December 2023 that questioned whether Bobi , a recently - deceased Rafeiro do Alentejo from Portugal , was really the oldest dog to subsist . ( He lasted 31 years , 163 day . ) Reynolds come upon that while the Portuguese administration maintain an animal database , it was at the mercy of paperwork render by best-loved owners . While Bobi ’s papers confirmed that he was born in 1992 , the database could n’t control the accuracy of that information .
Additionally , some people expressedconcernsover the fact that Bobi ’s paw were a different gloss in a picture taken in 1999 than in an image trance in 2023 . Bobi ’s owner , Leonel Costa , did not respond toWIRED ’s request for input .
At 31 , Bobi would have been an extreme outlier . reckon on stock , canine life spans average 11 years or so . Because vet records can well be lost , it ’s exceedingly difficult to formalize a dog ’s birthdate unless they ’ve been with the same owner — who keep on estimable paperwork — since birth .
The issue raised by Reynoldsledto Guinness suspending applications for records for both the World ’s Oldest Dog and the World ’s old Living Dog until additional research can be conduct , includingsoliciting the ruling of expert and asking Bobi ’s owner for more information . ( Bobi , however , is stilllistedwithout any asterisks on the Guinness website . ) That means that Spike , a 24 - twelvemonth - old Chihuahua who was antecedently recognise by Guinness and who might now be the longest - living pooch , will need to have more substantiation analyzed before he can hop back on the ambo to officially re - claim his title .
