Snowflake, at age 21, has lived a life full of pork chops and perogies. (Wendy Ducharme)

Ukrainian food might be the secret to a long life, at least for a perogy-eating pooch from Manitoba.

Snowflake, a mutt that looks like a white husky, recently turned 21.

While he sleeps much of the day and is hard of hearing, Snowflake still gets lively when he sees his owners.

"There are days when we're getting out of the vehicle, when we get home from work, and he's jumping around like a puppy and I'm thinking, 'there's nobody who's going to buy it when I tell them you're 21,'" said Wendy Ducharme.

Snowflake was born in 1989 and has lived with Ducharme's family ever since in the Rural Municipality of Cartier, a community about 25 kilometres west of Winnipeg on the Trans-Canada Highway.

"The dog grew up on perogies and holopchi and nalysnyky and you know, fried pork chops and chicken and anything that he was probably not supposed to eat," Ducharme said.

The typical lifespan of dogs varies widely among breeds but for most, it ranges from 10 to 13 years.

In January, the BBC reported that Otto, a dachshund-terrier cross in the United Kingdom died. He was 20 years and 11 months old and had been recognized by Guinness World Records in October 2009 as the oldest living dog.

There is no word on what Otto ate.

Perogies (dumplings), holopchi (cabbage rolls) and nalysnyky (Ukrainian crepes) are not ingredients found in a typical bag of dog food. But Snowflake is not a typical dog.

He spent much of his time hanging out with sheep — not herding them, just hanging out.

Now that Ducharme no longer keeps sheep, Snowflake is a retiree who spends most of the time snoozing (counting sheep) but occasionally patrolling the yard for old time's sake.

"He doesn't have any particular talents but he is very good," Ducharme said.

She didn't say whether she intends to give the Guinness folks a call.