Raheem Sterling Has Bought A £15,000 Dog To Protect His House

Manchester City and England football star Raheem Sterling has celebrated signing a new bumper contract with the Premier League champions by buying a lovely new companion - a £15,000 Rottweiler to guard his house.

I mean, Sterling probably has quite a lot of stuff that he would like to protect. The guy owns a huge £2m mansion in rural Cheshire, so you'd imagine his gaff is pretty nice. Now, any burglars who might fancy chancing their arm at robbing him stand to lose it.

The new dog is called Okan, and he is pretty formidable to say the least. He's probably lovely, but you wouldn't fancy encountering him if you'd just hopped over the back wall of someone's house.

Actually, because of a high number of footballers having their houses broken into, quite a lot of sports stars now have huge dogs to protect their home and their families.

The company that sells a lot of these dogs to the soccer players is called Chaperone K9 and they have provided several other Premier League players with companions who also have the happy advantage of being absolute units.

West Ham striker Andy Carroll has two Italian mastiffs. Some players such as Manchester United's Phil Jones and Mark Noble - who also plays for The Hammers - have opted for Belgian and German Shepherd dogs.

We know that Sterling has recruited his new friend because he shared an Instagram post of him - looking very cute, to be honest - with the caption: "How are you spending Halloween? Big Okan is trick or treating for Halloween !!!"

As mentioned, Okan is probably lovely, but you do also get the sense that he could probably tear you limb from limb if he so desired.

The company selling them says that they 'provide an extensive matching service to help you find the right protection dog for the needs of your family'.

The Chaperone K9 website continues: "We are renowned for supplying trained dogs to the very highest quality that offer both security and love to their new families in an often unpredictable society.

"We have truly bridged the gap between security dogs and family pets."

I mean, that's the dream, isn't it? You'll probably need something like this dog here for that.

The claim that: "Our client base also includes Premiership footballers, international rugby players, pop stars and people working in high-risk environments."

Even though they aren't cheap, Sterling can definitely afford it. He recently signed a new contract with Manchester City worth about £300,000 every week.

That's 20 huge dogs every week. How big is that house again?