Description of a Shar Pei.

The Shar Pei breed comes from the Guangdong province of China where it was well-known as a fighting and guard dog. 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 origianl type by calling them respectively "meat-mouth" and "bone-mouth" Shar-pei.

Originally, the intense loyalty of the Shar Pei defined its work -- guarding the Chinese royal family. The dogs are ideally suited for defense; the small ears and deep-set eyes are tough to grab and if grabbed on the skin, the wrinkles enable the dog to turn around and bite back. At one point they were close to extinction, and were listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as "The rarest dog in the world". Since then, however, the Shar Pei has begun to thrive in many parts of the world as an excellent family dog, due to their loving and devoted nature, suggesting they may have originally been a utility and companion breed rather than a fighting breed. A nickname for the breed is "Golden Lion", referring to dogs who have a light brown coat.

DNA analysis has concluded that the Shar Pei is one of the most ancient dog breeds.