Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/gunther-dog-mansion-mian-32-million/
In 1992, eccentric German heiress Karlotta Liebenstein left her $150 million dollar trust to Gunther III, her beloved German Shepherd.
Now, in 2021, that lineage has continued and Gunther VI, a pampered pooch who lives in the lap of luxury, is selling one of the trust’s many homes, for an eye-watering $31 million — or so the story goes.
As widely reported by NPR, Forbes, and Today, the story is an over-the-top tale of the “world’s richest dog.” The only problem? It’s probably all a hoax.
Here’s what we do know: A Miami villa at 3029 Brickell Ave., is being listed for $31 million.
It belonged to pop singer Madonna until 2000 when it was bought by a group called the Gunther Corporation. They drummed up publicity for a big reveal, and then announced the buyer: a German Shepherd named Gunther IV!
This is where the “Karlotta Liebenstein” backstory comes into play. There’s no record of this fabulously wealthy heiress from before 1999, seven years after she supposedly died. There are no existing photos of her, either.
“Gunther the dog hasn’t been heard from in quite some time. While it has been claimed that the whole thing is an elaborate hoax it would be a very expensive one,” Yahoo Finance wrote in 2016. “If Gunther is a hoax he has fooled The New York Times, The Financial Times and The BBC just to name a few.”
Though doubts continue to swirl about the truth of the whole Gunther story, the real estate team insisted in an interview that it was all true: “He lives in Madonna’s former master bedroom,” real estate agent Ruthie Assouline told CBS Miami. “He literally sleeps overlooking the most magnificent view in an Italian custom bed in the former bedroom of the greatest pop star in the world.”
But Gunther VI isn’t just a coldhearted robber baron, they added — he’s started the Gunther Rescue to give back to less fortunate mutts! Only, here’s the thing. The Gunther Rescue has absolutely no web presence at all. No website, no social media of its own, no news stories about the charitable work they’ve done. The only trace of the Gunther Rescue online is Gunther VI’s Instagram account, which was created in early November as the mansion was listed. On that account, there’s a few photos of Gunther VI with some other pups, captioned, “Il cane milionario e la sua Günther Rescue.”
That’s “The millionaire dog and his Günther Rescue,” for those of you not fluent in Google Translate. But in a world where any cute pup with a quirky story can quickly amass thousands of followers, how does Gunther VI, the “richest dog in the world,” have less than 100, as of mid-November? And why are the captions of his posts mostly in Italian?
“This is a totally made up story. The broker is talking nonsense. There is no dog. There never was a dog. The owner thought it would be a fun way to score a reality TV show. That’s it,” an anonymous source told The New York Post. “Right now, they have hired a dog and are filming him at the house. They hired a dog 20 years ago and now they’ve hired another — it is a scam.”
The real owner? An eccentric millionaire, but not Karlotta Liebenstein. His name is Maurizio Mian, and his fortune comes from the world of pharmaceuticals. “Mian once admitted to an Italian newspaper that the countess never existed,” a 2005 Tampa Bay Times article explains. Mian also admitted to the New York Post that the story is “complicated,” and not as it seems.
A blog post from marketing guru Stefano Cigana suggests that this long-running project is somehow related to Mian’s interests in human health and happiness. The anonymous source that discussed the story with the New York Post claimed that it’s all for reality TV.
For now, it’s impossible to know what, exactly, the truth is. The only thing I do know? Mian co-wrote and produced a theme song for Gunther in the 90s, and it is a stone cold classic.
Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog
