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History 
 The Shar Pei
breed comes from the Guangdong province of China. The original Shar-pei from
China looked very different from the breed now popular in the West. People in
southern China, Hong Kong, and Macau differentiate the Western type and the
original type by calling them respectively "meat-mouth" and "bone-mouth"
Shar-pei.
Traditional Shar-Pei.The ancestry of the
Shar-Pei is uncertain. It may be a descendant of the Chow Chow, however, the
only clear link between these are the purple tongue. However, pictures on
pottery suggest the breed was present even in the Han Dynasty (206bc). For many
years the Shar-Pei was kept as a general-purpose farm dog in the Chinese
countryside, used for hunting, protecting & herding stock and guarding
the home and family. During that time the Shar-Pei was bred for intelligence,
strength and scowling face.
Later, it was used for dog
fighting. The loose skin and extremely prickly coat were developed originally to
help the Pei fend off wild boar, as they were used to hunt. Dog Fighters used
these enhanced traits to make the Shar-Pei difficult for its opponent to grab
and hold on to and so that, if it did manage to hold on, the Shar-Pei would
still have room to maneuver and bite back.
The Shar-Pei's
most intriguing feature, in this respect, is that if you grab them by any loose
wrinkle they can actually twist in their skin and face in your direction. This
trait was used in fighting as a means for them to fight back, they would be
bitten and twist in their skin to bite back at the offender. During the
Communist Revolution, when the Shar Pei population dwindled dramatically, dogs
were rescued by a Hong Kong business man named Matgo Law, who appealed to
Americans in 1973 through a dog magazine to save the breed. Around 200 Shar-Peis
were smuggled into America. The current American Shar Pei population stems
mainly from these original 200.![]()
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