BEIJING, Feb. 6 -- There is a saying among ultra-rich men in northern China: you need a young beautiful wife, a Lamborghini, a villa with expansive grounds, a purebred horse and a Tibetan mastiff, the bigger and more ferocious the better.

    The latest four-footed status symbol has an enormous and powerful body, a big mane or ruff like a lion's, a thick coat, iron jaws, and a fierce and protective temperament. Males can weigh more than 100 kilograms. It's the world's biggest dog.

Wang Yang, 30, treats Tibetan mastiffs he raises in Jielian Tibetan Mastiff Kennel in Fengxian District as his babies. (Source: Shanghai Daily) Photo Gallery>>>

    They can be quite scary -- rich men like to say the dogs only obey them.

    Tibetan mastiffs can cost up to 4 million yuan (585,785 U.S. dollars) -- that is what a woman in Shaanxi Province paid for one dog last fall. It was welcomed at the Xi'an airport and escorted in a motorcade of 30 black Mercedes and SUVs. She told all her friends, especially informing them how much she paid, and everybody turned out.

    The Tibetan mastiff, one of Central Asia's mastiffs, is an ancient and primitive breed -- the fossil record goes back 8-10 million years. In China it's sometimes called "No. 1 dog" and "miraculous beast." Marco Polo wrote of seeing one and legend has it that Genghis Khan and Buddha himself had mastiff companions.

    They were used for guarding monasteries, palaces and homes (they still guard Tibetan homes) as well as livestock. They are famously fearless and said to fight to the death, even battling wolves and tigers. Some say they are descended from lions in the Himalayas that mated with black bears. They are intelligent and stubborn. The stuff of legend.

    In Fengxian District, Wang Yang breeds pure mastiffs that he calls his babies and names after famous Shanghai snacks, including Youtiao (deep-fried bread stick), Tangbao (steamed bun), Tangyuan (dumpling made from glutinous rice flour) and Wonton among others. He has five dogs, about a year old -- three already have been sold.

    Wang sells them for 20,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan as puppies, a relatively small amount, but he won't sell to just any rich guy who wants to show off.

    "I don't make money from this," he says. "I do it because I love being with dogs."

    Just a few weeks ago a multimillionaire from Zhejiang Province offered 800,000 yuan to buy Youtiao, but Wang refused, he could tell the man wouldn't raise it properly.

    "It's the owners, not their money that I care about," he says. "Mastiffs are just like my children and I have the responsibility for their life."

    Almost all his clients are rich businessmen "because raising such a huge dog is expensive," he says.