Cave canem!

A man found himself cornered by the two Tibetan mastiffs he was trying to steal last Tuesday night in Tianjin.

The thief, Zhang, had heard about the valuable pedigree dogs several nights before he tried to steal them, when he dined with their owner's neighbor.

But the well-trained dogs would not be persuaded with the food he offered and rushed at him as he clambered into the backyard.

Zhang spent four hours with his back pressed to a wall, trying to fend off the dogs. Their owner found him the next morning.

Tibetan mastiffs are considered one of the oldest, rarest and fiercest dog breeds and were first tamed by humans 6,000 years ago.

"It's quite lucky he didn't try to move - I wouldn't like to imagine the results," Wang Jian, the dogs' owner, said.