• Shar pei’s have wrinkled skin for their survival. The shar pei breed was picked out to be used as chinese fighting dogs because of their thick wrinkled skin. When shar pei’s are in dogfights the opponent would grab onto its skin and because they have very loose skin they could twist around in there skin and bite back. There are two different types of coats the first one is the horse coat and the second one is the brush coat. The horse coat is very short hair, sometimes under an inch. The brush coat is one inch and up at the shoulders

The Shar pei has various medical problems.One medical problem Shar pei’s have a medical problem in there eye called Entropion. Entropion is when the eyelid folds over the eye. When the eyelid folds over veterinarians need to do something called “Eye tacking”. Eye tacking is when they temporarily fold up the eyelids so the lids can roll out. Another medical problem is called stenotic nares. That is when the nose is pinched too close together and the cartilage makes up the nose may be too soft. When that happens the nose is prone to collapsing so the dog may not be able to breathe and die.

The Shar pei was the rarest dog in the world at one point. When China became a communist nation in the 1940’s,the government made a huge tax on all dogs. Making the Shar pei to almost go extinct. The Guinness Book of World Records named the Shar pei the rarest dog in the world in the late 60’s and 70’s.