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 four million yuan (£350,000).

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.

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.

Before she left Qinghai, Mrs Wang is understood to have alerted her wealthy friends to both the sum she had just paid for the dog and the timing of her arrival. Her friends, in an opulent show of solidarity, not only dispatched their Mercedes limousines to the airport but also arranged for local dog lovers to brandish welcome banners.

Reports suggest that the crowd at Xi’an airport swelled substantially as the fleet of luxury cars hove into sight: many onlookers believed, mistakenly, that they were awaiting the arrival of a human celebrity.

It is not known if Mrs Wang will be buying her dog the Amour Amour, a 52-carat diamond collar costing £1.08m

Lavish displays of spending are not rare among China’s rich. But excesses of dog ownership have already started to become a source of tension. The authorities in Shanghai are considering banning pets from many public places. In Guangzhou, which hosts next year’s Asian Games, a “one-dog policy” has been imposed on families.

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