Information on the Shar-Pei

Gathered information through centuries testifies that the Chinese Shar Pei dates from the HAN DYNASTI ( 200 before Christ to 220 after Christ). The city of origin is the town “DAH LET” in the southern china province “ KWUNG TUNG” The Shar Pei was the farmers dog, used as an all round dog for hunting, garding, company and fight. ( it was doped to be able to fight and the Chinese ended dogfighting with them as they were not fit and other types of dogs showed up on the fighting scene, better apt for this kind of sick “sport”

The breed has been close to extinction twice. First time during the Chinese hunger period because they were eaten .Second time when the communist took over and declared all dogs to be luxury and  put a tax on that nobody could pay. It is said that in the middle of the 70ties only 10 to 20 were left in China. End 70ties a few were sent from Hong Kong to USA in order to save the breed from extinction.

SHAR PEI means “sandy skin coat” and refers to the short and harsh coat. The breed is easily recognized with its big hippotamus muzzle, blue tongue , tiny small ears and curled tail.

In the summer 1980 the first two shar pei came to us at China House and they  were causing a lot of attention. FÆLLESKLUBBEN did a big and great job to have them recognized in DKK. The breed had almost 18 years in Fællesklubben, then moved to Molosserklubben with Merete Rivier as a chairman and   in 2005 the Shar Pei club was founded by a group of dedicated shar pei owners. Sharpeiklubben.dk is today the only recognized club for Shar Pei in Denmark and chairman is Merete Rivier.

A shar pei is easy to maintain because of the very short coat. It is a social, loyal, intelligent dog, closely related to its family and it loves children. It has a special Chinese attitude of pride, rests in itself, is extremely proper and some of them ( especially the horse coated dog) is quite reserved towards strangers. It loves to play, loves to find the most sunny spot in the garden, observes the world with half closed eyes but sees everything. Appreciates the best chair in your house and is always where the owner is. It has no problems being alone and is normally very sure of itself.

It is  at the size of a boxer ( 45 – 56 cm) and weighs around 23-28 kilo depending on the sexe. The puppy CAN have many wrinkles, the  horse coat showing more wrinkles as a pup than the brush coat, but common for both types of coat is that the adult Shar Pei is NOT supposed to have many wrinkles at the body and none on the legs.

There are two kind of head types. The short coated shar pei often has a bonemouth head ( less  padding on the muzzle) and the brush coat shar pei has a bigger and a more meath full head – thus the  name  meathmouth  shar pei. The bonemouth is the traditional shar pei and the one the Chinese of today refers to as the Chinese shar pei and the meathmouth is the dog of the modern west, which the Chinese says is not a true shar pei.. You can recognize these two types already from the birth – as normally the head types follows the coat type and the coats do not change after birth unless we talk about the bearcoat “shar pei”

" Standard Error"

THE SHOWN DOGS ARE NOT FROM OUR BREEDING . THEY ARE CHOSEN IN ORDER TO SHOW THE SHAR PEI FAULTS IN COAT AND COLOUR

LES CHIENS ICI NE SONT PAS DE NOTRE ELEVAGE MAIS SEULEMENT ICI POUR
ILLUSTRER LES SHAR PEI DEFAULTS CONCERNANTS POIL ET COULEUR

"ERROR COLOURED DOGS"

Here are some eksamples of incorrect shar pei.

 COAT AND CLOUR

Back in the 1950 and 60  in Hong Kong different breeds were mixed with shar pei in order to increase the breed in number, to have the blue tongue and the big head and to make it fit for fighting. These breeds were: ROTTWEILER, CHOW CHOW,BOXER, MASTINO NAPOLETANO and BULLMASTIFF.

As all shar pei of today relates back to this genepool these breeds genes sometimes pops up ( as throw backs) in the litters of today

These litters then have  incorrect coloured or longcoated ( bearcoats) pups along with normal  pups.

When a shar pei becomes bearcoat it is related to the chow chow. It is born normal coat, but at 2 weeks of age the coats changes dramatically and becomes the coat of a chow chow.The bearcoats shar pei will never look like a shar pei – rather than a bad chow chow and cross bred pups of shar pei/ chow chow

.Particoloured ( two coloured or three coloured) can be spotted or black and tans ( like rottweilers) or red/ white tan or fawn/ white tan – any colour in tan pattern is a serious fault and any shar pei that shows 2 or 3 colours is a serious fault and should never be used for breeding. Here in Denmark it is simple. In order to breed a shar pei it must pass a breed recognization that is to say it must be shown and have had a least a good, otherwise we cannot breed them and have DKK pedigrees. The particoloured, tan coloured or bearcoats are beeing disqualified .

Particoloured shar pei can be spotted like Dalmatians or like Grand Danois.

Some of the shar pei carries both genes for particolour and bearcoat and becomes particoloured bearcoats.

We here at China House have always been very very aware of these problems  and we are very proud to be able to say that  NONE of these gentic problems are found in our bloodlines. A shar pei from us is garantied without bearcoat or particolour.

We think these pups that do not look like  pure shar pei and  have nothing to do with a shar pei and we want to open peoples eyes that these genes  are disqualifying faults and that the dogs are to compare with any crossbred pup and cannot be shown, bred og breedregognized and that any litter carrying such pups should be considered not to be repeated and the source of the problem found. Male ? Female? Both? and when the source is found that the specific dogs is not used again. We think that sush pups should not be sold as shar pei.

Some breeders thinks they are cute and some even spezialize in breeding them – this is a problem for the whole breed and its genepool as it is absolutely an obstruction to the pure shar pei.

The Shar Pei does NOT deserve that these dogs are continued to be bred and sold as rare.

So if we want to care about this old and wonderful breed – we have to take the responsability not to use dogs that carry such genes.

PARTICOLOUR BLACK AND TAN

 PARTICOLOUR BRINDLE

PARTICOLOUR  BLACK AND WHITE

A LITTER WITH ONLY PARTICOLOUR

PARTICOLOUR RED AND WHITE

BEARCOATS AND PARTICOLOUR BEARCOAT