But when Kimball requested Guinness about re-verifying Spike, these vet estimates had been not adequate proof. One strategy to estimate the age of an animal is by their tooth, one thing that Spike lacks, though Kimball says she nonetheless has a couple of unfastened tooth left over from Spike’s run-in with the pit bull in 2015. Without any tooth in Spike’s mouth to supply proof, Kimball advised Guinness that she was struggling to discover a vet to confirm her canine’s age.

“We greatly appreciate your efforts in supplying the newly requested evidence, but at this stage we are unable to re-award Spike’s record,” Guinness World Records wrote to Kimball. “His original record is not affected by this review, but it does mean that for now we are unable to recognize him—or any other claimant—as record-holder.”

Kimball is just not happy that Guinness is refusing to re-crown Spike because the world’s oldest canine. “I’m not upset that he got beat, that can happen. I am upset at the fact that they’re withholding his record, because this record should have nothing to do with this other dog,” she says.

It’s extraordinarily tough for vets to precisely estimate the age of an grownup canine, says Louise Allum, head veterinary surgeon for the UK Royal Veterinary College’s shelter drugs program. Puppies are a lot simpler to age as a result of they lose their tooth in a predictable order: incisors first, then canines, premolars, and molars. Tracking the event of grownup tooth is a dependable strategy to estimate the age of a canine as much as a couple of 12 months outdated.

“After that it gets more and more tricky,” Allum says. There are delicate tells {that a} canine is getting lengthy within the tooth. Older canine might need extra tartar buildup, however that varies rather a lot with weight loss plan and dental care. Older canine generally have cloudy eyes, however this could set in wherever from the age of 5, 10, and even later. Some canine go grey, others don’t. Some begin to skinny out within the face, whereas others keep chubby-cheeked all the best way into outdated age.

All of which means that it’s close to unimaginable to precisely assess a canine’s age as soon as they get previous a sure age. Even although Allum estimates the age of canine as a part of her day job, she nonetheless says that it comes all the way down to a well-informed “best guess” when she has to place an age down within the medical data of a stray canine.

The solely means to make sure of a pooch’s provenance is to have a report of them since their start, or at the least since they had been a pet. In the UK, canine should be fitted with a microchip that comprises a novel identifier earlier than they’re eight weeks outdated. A mixture of microchip data and pictures that present a canine growing old through the years could be probably the most dependable indicator of a canine’s true age, Allum says, though she notes that even these data might be falsified.

Guinness World Records’ head of publishing and model communication, Amber-Georgina Maskell, says that the corporate determined to overview its age-verification course of after receiving “some correspondence from vets” within the wake of the information of Bobi’s demise. Maskell says that the corporate is reviewing the proof it already has on file, searching for new proof, and reaching out to consultants and folks linked to Bobi’s record-breaking declare. As Bobi was additionally the oldest recorded canine ever (the earlier report holder, Bluey, died in 1939), that report title has additionally been paused. Guinness additionally has data for the oldest cats, llamas, and mice, however Maskell mentioned that these classes will not be at present paused.