Posted: September 2, 2009, 5 a.m. EDT
Chanel, the wirehaired Dachshund who held the Guinness World Records title for world’s oldest dog, has died at the age of 21.
“She just inhaled and took her last breath,” owner Denice Shaughnessy, of Port Jefferson Station, N.Y., told USA Today. “Chanel had been telling me it’s time.”
Earlier this year, Shaughnessy told the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph that Chanel suffered from cataracts but was otherwise in good health.
“While I go to work she sleeps all day until I come home and then when I get home she is like a ball of fire,” Shaughnessy said.
Still, Chanel, who celebrated her 21st birthday on May 9 with a people-and-pooches party in Manhattan, occasionally had senior moments.
“Sometimes I will find her walking around at night and I have to give her a little snack and then she goes back to bed,” said Shaughnessy, who adopted Chanel as a 6-week-old puppy from a shelter in 1988.
“The vet says he’s never seen a dog her age do so much,” Shaughnessy said.