World's Tallest Dog Dies at Age 8

He was born the runt of the litter, but Freddy certainly made up for that over time. The Great Dane from Essex, England, ended up becoming the tallest dog in the world, and that wasn't all that was large about the imposing pooch, who has died at the age of 8 1/2, per HuffPost. "He was not just the tallest dog, but the dog with the most love and the biggest heart," owner Claire Stoneman tells Guinness World Records of Freddy, who officially registered as 3 feet 4 inches "from foot to withers." When he stood on his hind legs, he rose to more than double that height: 7 feet 5 inches, though Guinness doesn't measure dogs standing like that.

Freddy, whose sister, Fleur, also lived in the Stoneman residence, devoured more than 2 pounds of minced beef, a half-pound of casserole steak, and a good portion of liver daily, per Yahoo. He and Fleur were rambunctious, obliterating more than two dozen sofas—until they realized they were actually comfy resting places. Freddy came close to beating the current record-holder of the "tallest dog ever" title: Zeus, a Great Dane from Michigan who measured 3.66 feet and died in 2014. "He was ... my reason. My joy. My annoyance. My happiness and my ultimate sadness," Stoneman tells Guinness of her beloved Freddy. "I can't stop crying. He was my life." See some more photos here. (More tallest dog stories.)