Once upon a time, Tibetan Mastiffs were highly priced type of dogs and status symbols selling for over $2 million in China.
The dog breed belongs to the large mastiffs family - a primitive dog developed in Tibet for guarding livestock and property.
Tibetan mastiffs were highly respected in China during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), when they were trained for use in the army and were also family companions and show dogs.
A property developer once paid 12 million yuan (US$1.8 million) for a one-year-old golden-haired mastiff at a luxury pet fair in the eastern province of Zhejiang in what was then the most expensive dog sale ever.
To portray how valuable this dog breed was, there's even a folklore that explains how a Tibetan prince was turned into a mastiff by a snake-like monster when he tried to steal barley seeds from it to save his people from starvation.
But now, the once highly regarded Tibetan Mastiffs are no longer fashionable pet in China. Thousands of them have been abandoned and 2,000 of the 3,000 Tibetan mastiff breeding centres in Tibet had closed because of the plunge in prices – from a high of US$2 million to less than US$1,500.
They now roam the Tibetan Plateau, where they spread disease and attack anything in their path.
Tibetan villagers have reported frequent sightings of mastiffs chasing bears, eating poultry, foxes and sheep, and attacking humans.
An eight-year-old girl in Qinghai was mauled to death by a stray female with pups in 2016.
The mastiffs also infect humans with hydatid disease, an infection in dogs caused by the larvae of a tapeworm which spreads through contact with food, water or soil.
The mastiff’s reputation as an indiscriminate killer and a menace is a far cry from the esteem in which the breed was held until fairly recently.
Authorities in the Tibet autonomous region, meanwhile, reported a monthly average of 180 human injuries caused by the strays.
Yin Hang set up the Gangri Neichog (“Sacred Snowland”) Research and Conservation Centre in 2014 to cater to the welfare of abandoned mastiffs and other animals on the plateau.
She became aware of the mastiffs’ plight after watching a video of a snow leopard being harassed by a pack of large dogs. She had previously worked in snow leopard conservation in Qinghai province in northwest China.
Referring to a wild, goat like mammal that makes up most of the leopard’s diet she said: “Several mastiffs surrounded the leopard, trying to get the blue sheep it had just killed. The leopard eventually gave up the sheep and left. Such things happen near monasteries a lot. The stray mastiffs have an adverse impact on the ecological food chain and endangered animals.”
A researcher in Peking University’s School of Life Sciences, Liu Mingyu has been studying the threat posed by mastiffs to snow leopards in Qinghai’s Sanjiangyuan region since 2014. He estimates that, there are as many as 160,000 stray dogs in the region, of which 97 per cent are of Tibetan mastiff lineage.
In a 2018 United Nations forum on wildlife conservation held in New York, Liu said his research, using neck trackers, infrared cameras, and analysis of faeces, showed that mastiffs were present in 17 per cent of snow leopard habitats.
He told the forum that “Tibetan mastiffs have become the most numerous and fastest breeding animals among all the carnivores on the Tibetan Plateau. Since they live in packs, they pose a threat to wildlife because they compete with them for food and living space.”
Bowie Leung, spokeswoman for the Caucasian Ovcharka & Tibetan Mastiff Club Hong Kong, says she has saved many dogs that have been abandoned in the city.
Leung asks people to think twice before buying mastiffs as pets.
They grow to be a beast weighing up to 200lbs (91kg). Potential owners have to consider whether there are neighbours around them, whether they have enough strength to walk them on a leash. They are very cute when they’re pups. Keeping mastiffs as pets involves sacrifices. My late pet mastiff was unfriendly towards outsiders. Even my training didn’t change his personality. I had to walk him at 2am.”
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