Chinese Woman Buys "Most Expensive" Dog for $582,000
By OLSEN EBRIGHT
Updated 8:32 AM EDT, Mon, Sep 14, 2009
A Chinese woman reportedly paid 4 million yuan ($582,000) for a dog. Think about that next time you're at the pet store complaining about the price of puppy chow.
The Tibetan mastiff known as "Yangtze River Number Two" is 18 months old, 31 inches high and knows how to make an entrance, the Times Online reported:
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.
A motorcade of 30 cars? That makes the President's motorcade look like small potatoes.
There are two versions of what possessed the woman, identified by only the surname Wang, to drop that kind of coin on a dog, the Times Online reported:
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.
Another version of the story suggests that the woman had spent some years in the quest for the perfect Tibetan mastiff, and was satisfied that the dog she found in Yushu was it. "Gold has a price, but this Tibetan mastiff doesn't," the young woman is reported to have said on her return home.
Love at first sight. A priceless dog. Something about pure blood. OK, Mrs. Wang, we get it. You're rich and love Yangtze, but just so it's on the record, pound-for-pound you're getting ripped off.
As Samantha Gowen of Pet Tales puts it:
The average Tibetan mastiff weighs between 150 to 200 pounds. Let's go with a nice round number and assume the dog weighs a tidy 200 pounds. If my rusty math skills are correct, the woman paid roughly $2,910 for each of those fur-draped pounds.
First Published: Sep 11, 2009 1:30 PM EDT on NBC Los Angeles
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