OLDEST DOG'S A SENIOR WIENER

By ADAM NICHOLS
May 6, 2009 --
She's the world's oldest pooch, with 21 years under her collar, but she never learned how to beg.

"She's independent. If she didn't want to do something, she had a look she would give, and she usually got her way," Long Islander Denice Shaughnessy joked of her aging dachshund, Chanel, whose 147th birthday -- in people years -- is today. Chanel -- named the oldest dog by Guinness World Records last year -- is taking a rare trip from her Port Jefferson Station home to mingle with canine buddies invited to her Manhattan birthday party. The old girl's red hair faded to white a long time ago. Her cataracts force her to wear special doggie glasses and her bones feel the cold. Her home is kept at a constant 72 degrees. She eats boiled chicken with whole-wheat pasta, and a specially selected soft treat designed for her ancient teeth. And she spends her days relaxing at home, only taking walks in the summer. "She used to run three miles with me every day," said Shaughnessy, a high-school principal's secretary who adopted Chanel from a Virginia shelter as a 6-week-old pup. "She still enjoys a walk, but now she's carried for a lot of it." Chanel took the title as the oldest dog last spring when a 28-year-old beagle from Virginia died.

Additional reporting by Kieran Crowley