Five people were blindfolded and asked to identify an animal by touch alone. The first person felt the animal’s face and said it was a hippopotamus. The second stroked the animal’s coat from head to tail and said it was a horse. A third touched the animal’s tail and swore she was holding a snail in her hand. The fourth pinched up a couple of rolls of wrinkled skin and asked why he was given a baggy old sweater to hold when everyone else got to touch an animal. The last person ran his fingers along the animal’s hide backwards from rear to front and yanked it back in pain, crying that he’d just handled a stinging nettle!

The original parable was of six blind men and an elephant, but in the modern day version, the elephant has been replaced by the Shar-Pei, a dog of contradictions. No one quality best exemplifies this contrast than the Shar-Pei’s “horse coat.”

Though the breed’s “calling card” may be the abundance of folds and wrinkles on its coat, the breed’s own name, “shar-pei,” (meaning “sandy dog”) is a reference to the extraordinary coat which no other breed possesses: It has a velvety texture when stroked from head to the tail, but quite another when rubbed against the grain (seamstresses and tailors will relate if we describe the breed’s coat as having a “nap”).  Hair in the “horse hair” coat is short, straight, and stands off the body. This can make it prickly and abrasive, and cause an itching, burning sensation in some people – sometimes even a rash.  The upside is that the coat’s coarseness tends to repel dirt.

Chinese Shar-Pei by Kevin Sprouls, creator of the Wall Street Journal stipple hedcut portrait style he introduced to the Wall Street Journal in 1979. To commission work from Kevin, click here.