“It’s true that I’m regarded as knowledgeable on canine coat colour,” Sheila Schmutz, an emeritus professor of animal and poultry science on the College of Saskatchewan in Canada, advised me. “A minimum of with regards to genetics.” I despatched Schmutz, who has revealed more than one papers concerning the coats of canine and livestock, a number of footage of Bobi taken in 1999, 2016, and 2022, and requested her whether or not the footage looked to be of the similar canine.
Schmutz wasn’t certain. In a couple of footage Bobi’s fur looked to be crimson, whilst in some other it appeared like he had a brown coat. Brown and crimson coats, Schmutz confident me, are two very other colours. “I had my husband take a look at the picture set too and he concurs that we will perceive why other people don’t suppose it’s the similar canine in all of the footage, but it surely’s now not completely transparent to us,” she wrote. “Want this had been extra clearcut …” she signed off her electronic mail.
For walk in the park, I must glance in other places, and so I grew to become to Karen Becker, a veterinarian and creator of The Endlessly Canine: Unexpected New Science to Lend a hand Your Dog Significant other Reside More youthful, Fitter, and Longer. In numerous articles, Becker was once credited as the one that broke the inside track of Bobi’s demise, in a submit on her Fb web page. I despatched Becker a message thru her site and waited for a reaction.
Becker, it grew to become out, was once away lecturing, however I did get a reaction from her administrative assistant, Dana Adams, who was once now not inspired with the Father or mother article casting doubt on Bobi’s longevity. “Such a lot is improper,” Adams wrote. “Bobi by no means ate uncooked meals, he most effective ate do-it-yourself cooked meals, he’s a mutt now not a purebred, and the foyer group waited till the deficient little man’s cremation day to boost inquiries to Guinness about further checking out.”
Wait—what? A foyer group? It was once true that the GWR article about Bobi, and quite a lot of the next press protection, had picked up at the element that Bobi most effective ate “human meals,” an element that Bobi’s proprietor, Leonel Costa, cited as a reason why for his canine’s abnormal longevity. (Costa didn’t reply to WIRED’s requests for remark.) However Adams’ connection with a foyer group appeared to be suggesting that there have been darkish forces at the back of those doubts. I pressed her for extra main points.
“Smartly, the ones people within the puppy area are aware of it by no means is going smartly whilst you threaten a multi-billion greenback empire,” Adams wrote to me. “The Father or mother article made it transparent that is concerning the issues vets have if other people do what Leonel did and feed a home-cooked nutrition … Bobi at once threatens this complete trade.” Connected was once a screenshot of the arena’s most sensible 10 dog food producers, as ranked by means of petfoodindustry.com. Topping the checklist had been Mars Petcare Inc., Nestlé Purina PetCare, and Hill’s Puppy Vitamin.
