London: A Tibetan Mastiff has been sold in China for a whopping one million pounds, making it the world's most expensive dog.
The Telegraph reported that Tibetan Mastiffs are fierce guard dogs and are thought to the one of the world's oldest breeds. According to legends, both Genghis Khan and Lord Buddha kept them.
This breed of dogs have now become status symbols for China's nouveau rich as they are thought to be a pure "Chinese" breed and are rarely found outside Tibet.
Priced at around 5,000 yuan barely five years back, the cost of a Tibetan Mastiff has risen astronomically and is sold for hundreds of thousands and even millions of yuan.
The world's most expensive dog - Big Splash, or "Hong Dong" in Chinese - is 11-months-old and stands nearly three-feet-high at the shoulder and weighs more than 180lbs (about 81 kg), said the dog's breeder, Lu Liang.
"He is a perfect specimen.
"He has excellent genes and will be a good breeding dog. When I started in this business, ten years ago, I never thought we would see such a price," Lu was quoted as saying.
He said the buyer was a coal magnate from north China who paid 10 million yuan (945,000 pounds).
"I could see he loved the puppy, or I would not have sold him.
"The buyer told me he thought he was a good investment. As a male dog, he can be hired out to other breeders for as much as 100,000 yuan a shot. He could recoup his money in just a couple of years."
Before Big Splash, the world's most expensive dog was a Tibetan Mastiff called Yangtze River Number Two. It was sold in 2009.
Yangtze River Number Two was chauffeured to its new home in Xi'an city in a motorcade of 30 black limousines.
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