WOOLSTHORPE, Australia, April 20 (UPI) -- The Australian owner of a dog thought to be the world's oldest at 30 years of age announced the canine died peacefully in her sleep.
Dairy farmer Brian McLaren announced his dog, Maggie, was found to have died in her sleep Tuesday morning at his Woolsthorpe, Victoria, home.
"She was 30 years old, she was still going along nicely last week, she was walking from the dairy to the office and growling at the cats and all that sort of thing," McLaren told The Weekly Times. "She just went downhill in two days and I said yesterday morning when I went home for lunch ... 'She hasn't got long now.'"
"I'm sad, but I'm pleased she went the way she went," McLaren said.
Maggie was believed to be the oldest dog in the world at 30 years of age, but McLaren was unable to have the canine's age recognized by Guinness World Records because he didn't have any paperwork proving her advanced years. The oldest dog recognized by Guinness died in 1939 at the age of 29.
McLaren said his family adopted Maggie when she was only 8 weeks old.
"She wasn't pampered but she was well looked after. She always had milk -- not too much of it, but she loved her milk -- and anything else she'd wanted," McLaren told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "She loved chasing the motorbike. When she was up and going she would want to run along beside it, so the faster you went, the quicker she would run."
"She had the greatest life," McLaren said.
