[Oct
10]RACELAND, Ky,US--At just four inches (10.16cm) tall, Boo Boo
is the world's smallest dog in height.
Boo Boo stands 4-inches tall at the shoulder,
is 6 and a half inches long and weighs 1.5 ounces.
Boo Boo's owner, Lana Elswick, breeds Chihuahuas,
and said Boo Boo was the size of her thumb when she was born.
Her human mother said the 1-year-old long haired chihuahua
is a total diva, and her favorite food is Lays potato chips.
"She has the attitude of a big dog she would let me
know if anyone was around and she would try to guard me if she could,"
said Elswick.
Raising tiny dogs is not new to her. She has 25. She
even built a sunroom on the back of her house for the dogs.
“I don’t breed that many now,” she said. “Some
are too old and some are so tiny I bottle fed them, and fell in
love with them. I just don’t believe in breeding them to death or
inbreeding.”
Mrs Elswick told an American newspaper that the Chihuahua
is a total diva, and her favourite food is crisps.
Boo Boo hasn't got much bigger since being born
a year ago, weighing just 42.5 grams (1.5 ounces).
Raising small dogs can be a challenge, she
said. Boo Boo almost died twice. “So many little dogs get hypoglycemia,”
Elswick said. “There’s a product called Pet Nutra drops and this
is the stuff that brought her right back around. When you squirt
this into their mouth it goes directly into their blood stream.”
Elswick had to feed her with an eyedropper every
two hours for the first week before her little mouth could nurse
a bottle. “Boo was about the size of my thumb when she was born,”
she said.
Mrs Elswick explained that she had her dog measured
in May, but didn't send it to world record bosses until June.
The tiny puppy was one year old in April and she
weighs about 1 pound 4 ounces. She couldn’t be entered into the
running until after she was one year old.
Elswick found out through one of her customers about
the search for the smallest dog.
“A lady in Illinois that bought a puppy from me e-mailed
and said she saw the little dogs on the Internet,” Elswick said.
“She said she knew I had the smallest dogs.”
At an annual spring fling event in May at the Ashland-Boyd
County Dog Park, she had Boo Boo measured officially.
“Terri Tomondi did the measuring,” she said. “She’s
a vet tech and also a notary and could officially measure the dog.”
But, according to the rules, Elswick had to get witnesses
for the measuring and a statement from the veterinarian on Boo Boo’s
birth date. She also had to have a video made.
