20-Year-Old Golden Retriever
June 29, 2020
The Internet has fallen in love with a golden retriever whose owners believe her to be the oldest living dog in her breed.
August, also known as Augie, turned 20 on April 24, 2020, and lives with her family in Oakland, Tennessee.
Augie was adopted back in 2014, though recently garnered viral attention after a golden retriever interest group wished her a “Happy Birthday” on Facebook.
“She’s a really sweet girl,” owner Steve Hetterscheidt told “Good Morning America,” adding that Augie loves to eat blueberries. “She’s kind of quiet now. She does a lot of laying around. She’s very alert and always paying attention to what’s going on.”
Hetterscheidt and his wife Jen first fostered Augie when she was 14 years old. At the time, Jen was the intake director at Golden Retriever Rescue of Southern Nevada.
Augie was first adopted at 7 years old through a Craigslist ad near Sioux City, Iowa. That owner had her birth certificate, though there was no pedigree or record of her original descent. With this information, along with a public list of the oldest living dogs, the Hetterscheidts think Augie could be the world’s oldest living golden.
“If you stuck Augie on that list she’d be number 19 and there were no other, older golden retrievers,” Hetterscheidt explained. “We don’t have proof, but we call it a preponderance of evidence.”
Guinness World Records told “GMA” it does not monitor separate categories for different dog breeds.
The current title-holder of world’s oldest dog is a 21-year-old rat terrier named Jake.
Hetterscheidts own three other golden retrievers — Belle, a 7-year-old certified therapy dog who visits children at St. Jude’s Hospital, Sherman, 10, who was born at Golden Retriever Rescue of Southern Nevada and Bruce, 10, whose previous owner, a friend, left the pup to the couple in their will.
On her birthday, Augie enjoyed a carrot cake made specially for dogs.
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