Lazare, a 30-year-old continental miniature spaniel who may be the world's oldest dog, died on Thursday near Annecy in France, his owner announced on Friday, according to AFP.
“You were our little grandpa,” Ophélie Boudol, 29, wrote in a message posted on Instagram, announcing the death of her puppy.
Lazare was born on December 4, 1995, says Anne-Sophie Moyon, a carer at the shelter in Annecy-Marlioz, in Haute-Savoie.
He spent most of his life with the same mistress and was entrusted to the association upon her death. He was adopted a month ago by Ophélie Boudol, who was originally looking for an animal for his mother.
But this single mother, who has a 9-year-old boy, fell in love with Lazare and brought him home, where she already has two cats, she told AFP.
“He was found next to the body of his mistress,” he was told. “I sat next to him for half an hour, then I said, 'Look, if nobody wants to take him, I don't mind, as long as he gets along with the cats.'”
Lazare died just a few weeks later. “He started passing out in my arms last night,” she recounted. “Wednesday, I went to buy him a new basket so he could get into it more easily with a blanket and everything he needs, plus a sweater and a coat. Finally, the next day, he went to join his first owner.”
“Could be world's oldest dog”
At 30 years and five months, Lazare wore diapers, could no longer hear, could no longer see and slept most of the day. But he was still very lively, according to his mistress.
“He really has a very attractive personality,” she told AFP earlier this week, cradling him to her chest at his home in Villy-le-Pelloux.
When the shelter's Anne-Sophie Moyon and her colleagues discovered Lazare's age, they thought he “could be the oldest dog in the world,” she said.
They checked his date of birth in two registers and filled out forms to put him on a possible record, she added jokingly.
Guinness World Records, contacted by AFP, said it had “received no claim or associated evidence” before Lazare's death and therefore could not confirm whether he held the record.
An Alentejo rafeiro, a mountain dog, named Bobi was believed to be the world's oldest dog when he died in 2023 in Portugal at the alleged age of 31, according to the Guinness World Records website.
But a reassessment in 2024 concluded that there was insufficient and conclusive evidence of its age.
