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A "Wun Fish body"
Features can be determined from many different aspects.
-Evolutionary consideration (over 500 years)
-Environmental consideration
-Functional consideration
-Breeding consideration (about 60 years)
-Human classification consideration
-Features summary
Evolutionary consideration:
The environment determines how an organism looks like. The environment certainly cannot create a design but in the evolutionary process, it definitely limits the options of design an organism can adopt. All faulty or even less effective design would quickly faces the final judgment from the very beginning.
When human try to become god, when he/she intervenes in the design, some of the organisms now have become totally dependent on continued human intervention (veterinarian) in order to survive. We should look back into the original organic condition and try to understand what we have lost in the health issues. Then we become aware that in order to maintain health, we must go back to its origin; go back to the design which it survived naturally within the human community.
Health is the number one concern facing every Shar-Pei today.
Shar-Pei as a general term today can come in a very large number of varieties and range. It is not difficult to see that the large differences in appearances (morphology) are actually consequence of longer term evolutionary (heredity) force working together with shorter term human breeding preferences, and finally a very short term power of market force all working together in concert in the process.
Environmental consideration:
To understand and define the features of traditional Shar-pei,
one must first understand its habitat in its place of origin
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Like any breed standard, one should look into what Shar-pei should function in its original environment.
Let us imagine you are sitting in a typical agricultural environment a few hundred years ago in Dali in southern China. You grew up and lived for your whole life in a village. You have your lot of farmland around your village you need to tend, and there were woods and hills nearby you can hunt. Please note that Dali and Guangzhou both sit on the Pearl River delta area and therefore that there are not many mountainous terrain.
You have several Shar-pei which can help you protect your village day and night by alerting you with barking when someone approaches. You can go up the hills with your dogs and catch a few animals to supplement your dinner table. Also, when you are working in the field, the dogs can chase the small pest from your field for you. When you go to town every other week to the farmers gathering, you would see a dog fighting ring where people entertain themselves with the betting.
People in Hong Kong tend to emphasize on the fighting aspect of Shar-pei. This can be explained by nature of Hong Kong being a commercial city in contrast to people living in the country side as farmers. Even today, China is basically an agricultural country with 80% of its population still in farming. If we are talking about several hundred years ago, the proportion should be even larger. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that the evolutionary force in an agricultural setting should have a more sustaining influence over time on the evolution of Shar-pei.
Functional consideration:
What the dog has been used for. The two major schools in determining the features of Shar-Pei has been the urban school and the rural school. The urban school which include people mostly from Hong Kong and older Guangzhou, who have their root in the "Chinese Fighting Dog" culture, and the rural school which is basically agrarian in nature. An understanding of its original habitat and agricultural background can help understand this point of view.
Basically, are we trying to look at Shar-Pei as Gladiators in the Coloseum in the city of Rome, or the Farmers in the countryside.
Breeding consideration:
Furthermore, the perception of Shar-Pei is being complicated by the market place in America. Ever since Matgo Law in 1973 appealed to the Western world, particularly in the U.S., to "save the Chinese Shar-Pei" , although not his original intention, he never would have expected that the term Shar-Pei became synonymous to wrinkles, the funny looking exotic Chinese dog with very soft coat suitable for the living rooms and bed rooms. Shar-Pei was transformed by the Americans from a working breed to a pet toy in home.
An overall long hair (one inch) dog can not be a Shar-Pei as some of the Americans think what they would like to think of, but Matgo Law can not do much in this Shar-Pei absentee court because the American market itself has already drifted away to "horse coat", "brush coat" and some even developed into "bear" coat classification. A "brush" coat or a "bear" coat is simply a general Tang dog, NOT a Shar-Pei.
Many of the original functional features were either regressed, degraded or lost. Matgo Law tried to save Shar-Pei from extinction but he never anticipated that the American market had turned some of the Shar-Pei into a Frankenstein.
Human classification consideration:
It is very clear from morphology that the modern type (meat mouth) and the traditional type (bone mouth) have distinctly different appearance. The problem now is to whether to show the modern type and the old traditional type in the same show ring. Splitting the breed into two variety seemed an unavoidable option but until then, confusion will continue to infest the Shar-Pei issue.
In short, the traditional bone mouth Shar-Pei should be a very agile dog, fast in response to prey, alert to its environment, and possess clear territorial habit. Therefore, the conformation of Shar-pei need above all to be a sound working dog, For more information on the various features of Shar-pei, please refer to the following sections:
Summary
-Head and Muzzle
-Ear
-Nose
-Tail
-Body and coat
Further explanation on features of traditional Shar-pei can be seen in the Sharpei Club Hong Kong web site, in section on Hong Kong Kennel Club Sharpei Breed Standard.
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Introduction
