Kevin the Great Dane ascends the Guinness World Records as tallest living dog: ‘Epitome of a gentle giant’
This top dog refuses to be “Home Alone.”
A Great Dane named Kevin — a tribute to Macaulay Culkin’s character in the classic 90s movie — has been verified by Guinness World Records as the tallest living dog.
From his feet to his withers, the dog measures in at 3 feet and 2 inches, according to Guinness — which is the height of an average 3-year-old child — while the average male Great Dane typically measures in at 2 feet 6 inches.
Kevin lives with his owners Tracy and Roger Wolfe and their kids Alexander, 12, and Ava, 10, in West Des Moines, Iowa, alongside a house full of animal siblings, including three dogs, four cats, chickens, goats and horses.
“Kevin is the epitome of gentle giant,” Tracy, who works at a veterinary clinic, told Guinness. “In fact, he is scared of most things.”
Kevin is “super duper friendly” — “In fact, overly friendly. You don’t want to keep your mouth open too much when he’s around,” Tracy said. “But everybody loves seeing him as long as they don’t get whipped by his tail.”
The dog loves to sleep on the couch, and if you take his favorite spot on the couch, he will tell on you to his mom.
“Kevin’s favorite activity is probably taking naps. Holding the couch down is his favorite pastime, I think.”
While snuggling and snoozing are some of Kevin’s top hobbies, he’s pretty particular about the way he relaxes.
“He doesn’t love to actually sit. He will either stand or he will lay down. I think his legs are too long,” Tracy explained. “He will also back his rear end up and sit his back end on my lap. He can then keep his front feet on the ground in front of him.”
And while he may be lazy, he still consumes between six and 10 cups of food every day to maintain his figure.
Despite his larger than life size, Kevin often gets spooked by simple things. For example, the vacuum cleaner is one of the scariest things to him, and he even got jumpy around the measuring stick that qualified him as tallest dog.
“He is terrified of the vacuum. He won’t let it come within 6 ft of him! He will jump and run to get away from it,” Tracy shared.
Tracy said that Kevin doesn’t know how big he is and is actually a “big baby” — except for when it benefits him to be big.
“When Kevin, or any of my dogs, come to my clinic, I put a baby gate up in the door of my office. That way I can keep my door open, but keep the dogs in,” she shared. “He will be in there and stay whenever I am in there. However, if I leave, he just steps right over the baby gate like it’s nothing!”
“I don’t think he’s aware he is as big as he is. He’s continuously trying to squeeze into small beds and sit on top of us, and do everything that the smaller dogs do,” Tracy added.
Kevin is the successor to another Great Dane named Zeus, who died at the age of three in September 2023.
