Liz Taylor’s Dog Chowed Down on Prized Pearl

Does your dog like to chew on anything he can wrap his lips around? As it turns out, even pampered pets have bad habits. As reported in Page Six of the New York Post, Elizabeth Taylor’s dog’s had a taste for expensive jewelry, too. Keep reading to see how Liz Taylor’s Dog chowed down on her prized pearl.

Liz Taylor’s Dog Chowed Down on Prized Pearl

Liz’s world-famous Peregrina Pearl, a Valentine’s Day gift from Richard Burton valued at over 11 million dollars, became a crunchy treat for her Lhasa Apso shortly after it fell from her necklace and into the carpet. Here’s the story of how Liz Taylor’s Dog Chowed Down on Her Prized Pearl.

Elizabeth Taylor’s world-famous La Peregrina pearl — which sold at auction this past week for a record $11.8 million — was eaten by her dog shortly after she received it as a Valentine’s gift from Richard Burton.

“Twenty minutes after she put it on, she lost it,” recalls Ward Landrigan, the former head of Sotheby’s jewelry division who sold the 55.95-carat pearl to Burton for $37,000 in 1969.

After Burton bought the bauble for Taylor, Landrigan traveled from New York to Las Vegas, where he was picked up in a white Rolls- Royce at the airport to deliver the precious cargo to the glamorous couple at a Caesars Palace suite “the size of three tennis courts.”

“They asked what I wanted to drink,” says Landrigan, who’d sold Burton the 33.19-carat Krupp diamond a year earlier. “I asked what they were having, and they said salty dogs, which is vodka and clam juice.”

Landrigan presented the pearl and was chatting with Burton while Taylor left to try it on. She “came back running, showing her cleavage and saying, ‘Ward! I’ve lost the pearl!’

“The room had pink shag carpeting, and I was crawling past a settee when I saw one of [Taylor’s] two Lhasa apsos, and I heard the crunch. I said, ‘Liz, I know where the pearl is,’ ” Landrigan recalls. The pampered pooch apparently wanted the treasure for a quick snack.

Landrigan, who owns fine-jewelry company Verdura, says Liz grabbed the dog and put her hand into its mouth. “She got the dog to spit it out. I was afraid it cracked because pearls do,” he told us, adding that it suffered only a couple of scratches. Taylor then had Cartier make a diamond-and-ruby necklace for the pearl. The full piece was auctioned this past week at Christie’s and sold to an anonymous buyer.

Read more about how Liz Taylor’s dog chowed down on her prized pearl here. Tell us, what’s the most expensive item your dog’s ever tried to eat? And, did you get it back?