Tarazet

Oldest Living Dog?

A dog in Australia is about to turn 27-years-old and may be the world's oldest living dog. From Yahoo:

CANBERRA, Australia - A 26-year-old mongrel living with an Aboriginal family in Australia's Outback has the potential to become the world's oldest living dog, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Jerry, an Australian cattle dog-bull terrier cross, will next month turn 27 — the equivalent of 189 years for a human — said Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals veterinarian Honey Nelson in Sydney's Daily Telegraph.

"He will be 27 ... years in August — I have no doubt at all," Nelson reportedly said after examining Jerry. "He could push on to 28, going by his good body condition."

The oldest living dog in the 2004 edition of "Guinness World Records" is Butch, a 27-year-old beagle in the U.S. state of Virginia.

Jerry's owner, Waddie Harris — an Aboriginal tribal leader in New South Wales state's Wilcannia town, put Jerry's longevity down to his high-protein diet of Outback wildlife.

"Jerry has grown up on kangaroo, rabbit and emu as well as scraps off the table," the newspaper quoted Harris as saying.

An Australian cattle dog named Bluey, who died in 1939 at age 29, is thought to have been the world's oldest dog, the newspaper said.

That's just incredible. And suddenly my 20-year-old cat, Rainbow, is feeling middle-aged again!

Posted by Jeff Soyer at July 13, 2004 09:01 AM