GUINNESS WORLD RECORD – Meet Gino Wolf, the oldest dog in the world

Gino Wolf, the oldest dog in the world. All photos courtesy Alex Wolf

by Mark McDermott 

Alex Wolf wasn’t really looking for a dog, and certainly not a Chihuahua. Wolf was a 19-year-old college kid enjoying life in Boulder, Colorado. He was sharing a big house with a big backyard with some friends, who thought they should all get a dog together. 

A big dog, maybe, Wolf thought. “I grew up with big dogs,” he said. 

So the housemates took a field trip to the Humane Society’s dog shelter in Boulder. They walked through aisles of forlorn dogs. Wolf remembers vividly how the dogs watched them, as if the dogs knew — this was their chance to get out of the cage, to have a home. Finally, they turned a corner and a fierce little white dog was sitting there, somehow proudly, staring up at them. His housemates were smitten. Wolf wasn’t too sure. 

“I don’t want this to come across negatively, but I said, ‘Not my first choice,’” Wolf recalled. 

He was overruled, and the rest is….well, actual history. Because that little dog ended up spending over half of Wolf’s life with him —  22 years 68 days and counting —  and in so doing set a record. The dog’s name is Gino Wolf. Earlier this month he was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest living dog. 

“You know, I’m always in awe of the fact that he made it this long,” Wolf said. “It’s shocking, it really is.” 

Alex Wolf and Gino on a recent adventure.

When they met, Gino was not yet Gino. He was called Pee Wee. Wolf and his roommates knew that wasn’t right. This was a dog with dignity. Their thought was he needed a good strong Italian name. They called one of Wolf’s housemates’ father, an Italian guy from Long Island, and asked him, “What is the most Italian name you can think of?” 

“Gino,” the father responded, without hesitation. 

And so Gino came home with them. He immediately fit right in, just another one of the guys. If they were up late partying, Gino would be up late, partying. If the next day was a slow-moving couch-bound kind of day, Gino would chill on the couch all day. 

“He really was just a fun little dog,” Wolf said. “He would run around and do laps around the backyard in the snow. If friends would come over, he’d just hang out, kind of sit on the back of the couch and take it all in.” 

But what really stood out about Gino was that despite his diminutive stature, or maybe because of it, he had an outsized personality. 

“I quickly learned that the little guys, they have a lot of personality,” Wolf said. “He was a survivor. He was a fighter. I mean, whatever his past was before he came into our lives, I’m sure he had been through something. Because he was strong. He was not skittish. He almost had the attitude of, ‘I can do this on my own.’” 

Then the day came Gino became Wolf’s dog. 

“I was standing in front of my room that sophomore year when we got him, and I opened the door and he was just kind of looking at me,” Wolf said. “And I said, ‘Alright, get in here.’ And he ran in and jumped on the bed and I was like, ‘Oh shit. Here we go.’ I was hooked.” 

Wolf had always been an animal lover. Now he took responsibility for Gino. Wolf knew that one of the guys would be happy to have Gino after their college days, but he felt he could give the dog his best life. 

“I feel a very strong bond with animals,”  Wolf said. “So of course, I wanted to make sure we took responsibility for him. And I think there were some opportunities where someone would have taken him if I wanted them to, but that was never something I would have accepted myself. I knew that I could give him a really good life. The fact that it lasted so long is definitely the icing on the cake.” 

Gino in middle age, keeping it fashionable on the links.

At the end of Gino’s year at college, Wolf decided it would be better for Gino to move to Manhattan Beach with his parents. He knew he’d be bouncing around the next few years of his life and wanted Gino to have stability, plus his parents, Larry and Lynn Wolf, have a nice big yard. 

“They kind of assumed responsibility for him while I was in college because it just didn’t seem like a great fit. I was always out and I didn’t want to leave him alone in the apartments that I lived in,” Wolf said. “And then I traveled a bit, then I came home from college and we picked up right where we left off. The next thing you know it’s 17 years later and he’s still with me.” 

Wolf just turned 40. Over the decades, many things have come and gone in his life —  people, jobs, and homes. Gino has been a constant. Their bond has deepened. And through all the changes, Wolf began to understand something about the nature of his and Gino’s relationship. As much as Wolf took responsibility for Gino, his hard-nosed little Chihuahua has also taken responsibility for him. 

“It sounds funny to say, but it’s been a very loving, committed relationship,” Wolf said. “One of my favorite things about him is I never really thought of him as just a dog. I mean, some dogs are just dogs, they’re just a dog personality. Gino, it always felt like he was kind of like a moral compass almost. It’s hard to describe it, but it’s almost like having your grandpa there, kind of judging you. He’s just a very wise dog. And at the end of the day, I would always think, ‘Okay, how can I be a better human being for this dog?’ Let alone everyone else in my life.” 

“If you had to sum up Gino in two words, they might be, ‘He knows,’” said Tyler Wolf, Alex’s brother. “You just look at him, and he’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I know.’ I don’t know what he knows, but he knows.” 

“He’s got that ‘Most Interesting Man in the World’ kind of thing,” he added. “Even when he was younger, he’d give you that look, ‘I’ve seen this before. I’ve been there.’ You just feel like he’s been around. It was always hilarious, like something would happen and you’d look over at Gino, and he’d give you this very calming look. Again, that’s from when three years old, let alone when he was 20.” 

Gino and Alex Wolf in a recent photograph.

What struck Tyler from the time Gino first arrived on the scene was how alike he and his brother were. 

“They’re cut from the same cloth. They have a similar vibration, I guess,” Tyler said. “And they both give each other what they need, and there’s a lot of love exchanged between the two. Alex has taken care of his dog with so much love over such a long period of time. And I think Gino reciprocates.  He’s just always there for Alex. And if he’s the dog equivalent to the most interesting man in the world, it’s because he’s got a charisma to him that I think Alex also has —  Alex also has a big charisma and a big personality. Everybody who meets either one of them loves them. Anytime they go out, they are making friends. And they’re always up for a new adventure. Even Gino, at his age now, he’s just still out there.” 

Gino has also been a leader among dogs. Early on, when they would go to dog parks, Wolf would take Gino to the area set aside for smaller dogs. Gino wasn’t having it. 

“They always have the little dog park and the big dog one, and I’d bring him into the small one, thinking he’d have a better time in there. He’d be like…ah, no,” Wolf said. “He always led the charge with the other dogs. Even though they were bigger dogs, he always felt like the frontman.” 

Tyler said when Gino first arrived at their parents’ home, he walked in like he owned the place, despite the fact that there were two older, much bigger dogs already there. 

“He came into the house with all these golden retrievers running around, these 80-pound dogs, and he’s a 10-pound Chihuahua, right? And he very quickly became the leader of the pack,” Tyler said. “It’s a total lesson in being yourself and being confident. All the other dogs followed him around. He’s like, ‘Okay guys, I am in charge now.’ And the other dogs were like, ‘Yeah, let’s follow this dude. He knows what he’s doing.’” 

Over the years, Gino became a fixture in Manhattan Beach. 

“He knew how to have fun. We used to drive around all the time with the window down blasting the Grateful Dead, and he’d have his head out the window. I’d look over and just crack up. He was just amazing.” 

Gino is still sharp, but he’s no longer spry. He and Alex now live in Mar Vista, though he’s back frequently at the family house in Manhattan Beach. These days, his rambles around the neighborhood take place in a wagon. But naturally, Gino commandeers the wagon with the imperiousness of a little prince. 

“He has this sense of pride when we put him in the wagon,” Wolf said. “When we start walking, it’s almost like his legs are doing the moving, even though there are wheels underneath his feet. He’s taking in all the smells. I always imagine that he marked these trees for so long that he can  still smell his old path and all the other dogs. So we love taking him out so he can get his action outside the house, but he’s mainly a homebody these days.” 

One day in early October, Wolf happened to notice a news alert on his cell phone. Pebbles, a fox terrier from South Carolina who was the oldest living dog in the world, had just died. She was 22. Wolf did the math in his head and realized that this just might mean that Gino was now the oldest living dog. On a whim, he called the Boulder Humane Society, doubtful that they’d have records of Gino’s adoption. He had to certify his address at the time, which he happened to remember (though he couldn’t recall his cell phone number). He was surprised to learn that sure enough, they did have a record for Gino. And then came the big question. 

“Do you guys happen to have a birthday on file?” Wolf asked. 

“Actually, we do,” the man said. Gino was born on September 24, 2000. 

Wolf got to work. He contacted Guinness, and they needed a few more things. One was a photo of Gino as a young dog. Wolf tracked down his old roommates, and sure enough, one of them had a few photos. A veterinarian confirmed that Gino was a young adult in the photo. Then, in early November, Guinness emailed Wolf saying they needed one more bit of verification. 

“And I’m thinking I got nothing left here,” Wolf recalled. “I’ve reached out to anyone who could potentially help with this and so whatever they are asking for, I doubt I can supply it. Then I read further, and it said, ‘We need a photo of him with today’s newspaper.’” 

They needed proof of life. And Gino, wagon and all,  is very much still alive. Wolf went out and bought three newspapers, photographed Gino with the papers, and sent the files to Guinness.  An hour later, he received a reply. “Congratulations.” On November 15, Gino Wolf was officially recognized as the oldest living dog in the world. 

“It just seems so perfect,” Wolf said. “Like everything, all the ups and downs, all these little health issues here and there that pop up —   honestly, I’d sometimes think, ‘Man, he knew exactly what he was doing this whole time. He had a goal. I give him all the credit. Everybody is asking, what do you feed him? How do you keep him alive so long? And I say, unconditional love.” 

His brother has witnessed the unfolding of Gino’s life, and it’s made him think about some of the lessons from the Blue Zones, the areas of the world demographers have identified as having the longest-living and healthiest human populations. National Geographic explorer Dan Buettner’s investigations of these areas have revealed that living as part of a community and having a sense of purpose are key contributing factors to a long life. 

“Gino has got that community,” he said. “He’s got these other dogs and he’s got, in our family’s house, an extended family. And he’s got purpose: he’s looking out for Alex, all the time.” 

Wolf has also vigilantly taken Gino to the veterinarian and paid close attention to his diet. He always fed him high-quality dog food and switched it up occasionally, so Gino wouldn’t get bored with the same old thing. As Gino got older, he started making simple chicken, carrots, and rice for him. Three years ago, when Gino was having digestive issues, he switched to human-grade low-protein dog food, along with pumpkin and salmon snacks and, in the morning, goat milk with pumpkin powder and fish oil added. 

But Wolf thinks one of the keys might simply be a lot of human touch. He massages Gino’s back daily and always has. 

“I swear I think that that has had something to do with it, making sure that his joints are getting loosened up and massaged,” Wolf said.  “I always think to myself, ‘God, what if no one ever rubbed my back? What if I was always walking around and no one ever dug into those little crevices behind my shoulder blades to get a kink out?’  And so that’s something I’ve done for a very long time with him. I’ve always joked that like that in Beverly Hills, you’d probably spend $1,000 for a dog to get a massage. But with my dog, and with our family dogs, I always find myself giving them these deeper rubs, and I swear you watch them and they melt. In the back of my head, I always think even these little things factored in.” 

Tyler Wolf said that his brother does his dog massages naturally, just a part of the fabric of his life with Gino. 

“It’s not work for him,” he said. “It’s like the way somebody, when they sit down, might pick at their fingernail or something. When Alex sits down on the couch, he puts his hand out and he just gives Geno a massage and a cuddle. His resting state is taking care of Gino.” 

Tyler also believes Gino very likely has several years left. He said Gino still has a puppy’s spark in his eyes. 

“This dog might live for another 10 years,” he said. “He’s rocking and rolling.” ER

Gino and Alex out for a recent stroll.

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