I absolutely love Shar Pei's as far as their looks, they have the most adorable muzzles in the world...I'm constantly grabbing Jett's muzzle and kissing it, he hates it, lol...I grew-up with Pugs, so I have a predisposition for the breeds that most people think are "ugly", lol...I actually got Jett as a puppy about 6 months after my male Pug, Jaeger, passed away at the age of 14 from kidney disease.
I actually "rescued" Jett...His story is a sad one and it still makes me angry whenever I think about it. And to be fair, I knew that he was probably going to have some health issues, at least with his eyes, when I chose to take him in...
His breeder is a very well-known and "reputable" Shar-Pei breeder in the Pennsylvania/Maryland/DC area, and has been breeding Shar-Pei's for decades. I didn't know much about Shar-Pei's honestly, and I had just started thinking about getting another dog, and I really thought I would end-up with another Pug...Then I went to the Avian/Reptile Rescue to work one Sunday, and one of the volunteers is also a Dog-Foster, and she told me that she had gotten a call the night before about a pure-bred Shar Pei puppy that was 14 weeks old and was going to be euthanized by his breeder. The breeder told a close friend what she was planning on doing (just couldn't keep her mouth shut, thank God), and her friend told another friend, and so on, until it got back to this woman who was a volunteer at my Rescue because she was a Dog-Foster and they were trying to convince this breeder to turn-over the puppy instead of euthanizing him...
So basically this breeder had been breeding and selling AKC-Registered Shar-Pei's for years, and she sold the pups for between $2,000-$4,000 per pup, depending on what type of coat they had (Horse-Coat or Brush-Coat), what color they were, and how "wrinkled" they were...the more wrinkled the more they are worth, and depending on the "distribution of wrinkles" the more they cost...Well she had just had a litter of 6 pups that were black, silver, and tan, and they were apparently quite the pups and were bringing huge money...But she had one male puppy left, a black male with a Horse/Bristle-Coat that was the most-wrinkled of them all. She said he was one of the most beautiful pups she had ever bred...However, he was soooooo wrinkled that he had horrible Entropion, which is when they have so much skin over/around their eyes and in their eyelids that their eyelashes are constantly folded into their eyeballs, causing corneal ulcers, constant infections, and eventually blindness...
Now Shar-Peis can have to have "Eye-Tacking" surgery as young puppies even if they aren't officially diagnosed with Entropion, because their eyelids are all naturally wrinkled and loose, so it's pretty common for the pups to have to have their eyes "Tacked", which just means putting sutures in both the upper and lower eyelids to keep them pulled away from their eyes, and then as they grow their eyelids will stay away from their eyes...If the eye-tacking surgery doesn't work or if they aren't even able to do eye-tacking surgery because it's so bad, then they are officially diagnosed with Entropion, and they have to have a much more invasive surgery where they actually remove strips of skin from both their upper and lower eyelids to make them shorter so their lashes won't be in their eyeballs...
Here's the problem:
If a Shar-Pei puppy is officially diagnosed with Entropion and they have to have the invasive surgery to remove skin from their eyelids, their parents can no-longer be bred to produce AKC-Registered puppies ever again, even if it's just one puppy with Entropion they have produced, because the AKC doesn't want them to be bred purposely to have those issues. SO...That meant that because of Jett being born with Entropion, his breeder could no-longer breed AKC puppies from his parents ever again...His breeder had a Vet who was willing to attempt eye-tacking surgery on both his eyes 3 TIMES ON EACH EYE!!! She was desperately trying to get the eye-tacking to work so that he wouldn't be diagnosed with Entropion, but it didn't work and Jett was diagnosed with Entropion...
So his breeder decided to make a deal with her Vet to just euthanize Jett and pretend like he was never born to begin with, and that the litter was only 5 pups instead of 6 (all 5 other pups were already sold and gone, Jett was the only one left, and she pulled all the ads down and told everyone that the litter was only 5 pups and they had all been sold. So this breeder and her Vet, who she no doubt spent a fortune with every month/year, made the decision to kill Jett and pretend like he never existed...but she just couldn't keep her mouth shut...Now she could have gone the route of just selling him un-registered for less money as simply a "pet" quality puppy, but no, she wanted him to be wiped-off the face of the earth...Well then I got involved...I basically called her and told her very clearly that either she was going to sell me the puppy without registering him, or I was going to blast her all over the internet/Social Media and expose both her and her Vet and what they were going to do...So I drove the 2 hours to her house and picked-up Jett...
He's my little wrinkle...