A Tibetan mastiff called Yangtze River Number Two is believed to have broken the world record as the most expensive dog, having been sold to a Chinese woman for a reported $585,000.
In keeping with its status the dog — 18 months old and 80cm high — arrived at its new owner’s home in stupendous style. According to local reports, a motorcade of 30 cars cruised to the airport in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province, to take delivery of Yangtze, and a throng gathered to fête the arrival of the city’s new resident.
If the sales figure is accurate it makes Yangtze River Number Two possibly the most expensive dog ever. This year a family in Florida paid $155,000 (£90,000) for a Labrador called Lancelot Encore — a price that included the cost of cloning him from the original Lancelot.
In the days of Mao Zedong, pet dog ownership was condemned as a bourgeois folly and banned. Now nearly 150,000 dogs are registered in Shanghai alone. The Tibetan mastiff’s wealthy new owner, a Chinese website said, fell in love with it while on a visit to Qinghai province. The woman, referred to only as Mrs Wang, had been travelling to the town of Yushu with a Tibetan mastiff that she already owned with a view to mating it with the famously pure-blooded hounds of that region. While there, though, she spotted a dog known as White Root and knew immediately that she had to make it hers.