'World's oldest dog' contender dies in France aged 30

A French toy spaniel named Lazare, thought to have been "the world's oldest dog", has died aged 30, his carer said on Friday.

AFP contacted the Guinness World Records to find out if Lazare had held the record before he passed away on Thursday, but did not receive an immediate response.

Lazare, a Papillon dwarf spaniel with stand-up "butterfly" ears, was born on December 4, 1995, according to animal charity worker Anne-Sophie Moyon.

He spent most of his life with the same owner until she died and he was then handed to the charity's shelter.

Single mother Ophelie Boudol, 29, fell in love with the animal one year her senior at the shelter last month.

She had initially intended to find a pet for her mother, she told AFP, but she invited Lazare to join her family instead.

"You were our little grandpa baby," Boudol wrote in a farewell post on Instagram.

"You chose to take your final flight in my arms on the evening of May 14, to join your mistress who loved you so much," she said.

At 30 years and five months old, Lazare wore nappies, could no longer hear or see, and slept almost all day.

"He really has such an endearing personality," she told AFP earlier this week as she cradled him at her home in the southeastern town of Villy-le-Pelloux.

When Moyon and colleagues discovered Lazare's age, they thought "Lazare might be the world's oldest dog", she said.

They verified his birth date in two registries, and filled in the paperwork to register him for a possible record as a joke, she added.

A Portuguese Rafeiro do Alentejo named Bobi was thought to be the oldest dog when he died, reportedly aged 31 in 2023, according to the Guinness World Records website.

But a review in 2024 found there was not enough conclusive evidence of his age.