That’s the headline in the Daily Mail about a Chinese woman who’s just paid a world-record price for a dog. An extract:
A black Tibetan mastiff has become the world’s most expensive dog after a Chinese woman paid the equivalent of £352,000 [more than US $586,000] for it.
The millionairess owner and her new dog flew into Xi’an, the capital of the Shaanxi province, where they were greeted by a fleet of 30 black limousines.
She revealed that her ‘priceless pet’ had been named ‘Yangtze River Number Two’ and added: ‘Gold has a price, but this Tibetan mastiff doesn’t.’
The millionaire, who only gave her surname as Wang, said she and a friend had spent a long time searching for an original Tibetan mastiff.
She and a friend had travelled to the Tibetan province of Qinghai with a bitch mastiff they already owned.
In the town of Yushu they spotted the new dog and decided on the spot to buy it, regardless of price.
The Tibetan mastiff is an ancient breed that originates with nomadic cultures of Central Asia and northern India.
As a flock guardian dog in Tibet, it is renowned for being tenacious in its ability to confront predators the size of wolves and leopards.
Tibetan mastiff (image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)China’s economy has developed at a fast pace, creating with it an increasing number of millionaires.
Research by the Hurun Report, a magazine that tracks China’s wealthiest, revealed in April that 825,000 people had personal wealth of over 10 million yuan ($1.5 million), or 0.06 percent of the population.
The vast majority of these millionaires have said the global financial crisis has not had any impact on their lifestyle, the research said.
Earlier this year, a family in Florida paid £93,000 [almost US $155,000] for a Labrador called Lancelot Encore. That price included the cost of cloning the original Lancelot.
There’s more at the link, including a picture of the dog in question and its new owner.
Barking mad, indeed! Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs, I’ve owned them, and I hope to own them again: but to spend more than half a million dollars on a dog? Not for companionship, or for utility, but purely and simply because it’s a rarity? A dog that will be dead in a decade or so? I’m sorry, but I just can’t get my mind around that . . . given that sum, to add to my (limited) disability pension, I could retire!
Peter
That's a lot of money for what looks like a short-haired Newfoundland dog.
Archie
One the one hand, it seems tacky. On the other, it is her money to do with as she sees fit.
Jim
I'm obsessed with dogs. They're my pets and my profession. And.. I have a thing for giant dogs like Tibetan Mastiffs.
But I think Ms. Wang's a gullible nutjob. One can find very nice TM's for a *lot* less than a half million!
The only thing I can figure is that it had to be direct from working, native-to-Tibet stock and simply nothing else would do.
In that case, I sure hope she knows what she's doing; a dog like that is a lot of things, among them guardian, warrior, and serious worker, but "pet" isn't a descriptor I'd use.