I'm at a loss on whether I should purchase a Shar-Pei or Cairn Terrier, any advice.

Cairns are wonderful little dogs. They were my dream dog as a child and now I have a few. But be prepared for a terrier. If you like the terrier personality, you'll love them. They love to dig and chew a lot and have a great deal of energy. If you plan to do fun events like earthdog trials, terrier trials, agility, etc they're wonderful. They're a spunky little dog that needs to be kept busy and they are very loyal and pretty easy going around humans. Mine do not like cats!

Probally a cairn. Unless you spend thousands of dollars you will in all likely hood end up with a poorly bred shar pei. They get shar pei fever and have horrible allergies and just one can cost a thousand dollars at the vet every month if they have bad allergies.

I remeber one of my teachers in middle school had a cairn and she loved that dog. It was cute.

That's also a good point, I am not very familiar with Shar Peis but the cairn is typically a healthy little dog with a good life span. Largest cause of death in a cairn is getting run over.

Thats what happened to my teachers:( She missed school for a week. thats why I remember it so much.

My grandparents first shar pei did of cancer at six and the vet said(the special shar pei vet that you have to drive hours too) it is very common for them to not live longer than that. She suffered horribly and now they all get full body checks every day. Skin cancer is very common in them. The good dog was around 1500. The other two, especially thenew rescue is going into the vet at least three times a month and on a ton of meds.

You might want to try a Shar Pei mix. Ours is Shar Pei and Pit Bull (not an intentional breeding, by the way) and she is a wonderful dog. The best demeanor of all of our dogs, so loving and kind. She is smart, very cute and sweet.

However, I do agree about the skin troubles. Ours has very sensitive skin, when I took her to the groomers, she had a reaction to either their shampoo or I am thinking it was the blow dryers. She came home with her belly beet red and raw like beef steak. She's fully recovered since, thank goodness.

I've never had a Cairn Terrier, we did have a Rat Terrier and he was high energy, loved to bark at everyone going by, loved to run.

Remember that a Cairn would be more labor intensive as far as grooming goes, they have longer hair than the Shar-Pei.

Does it have to be a purebred? There are so many nice mixed breed dogs available at shelters or rescues. Puppies all the way through adult dogs. You might want to think of that option also.

Good luck with whatever dog you decide upon.

Actually cairns are too bad for grooming. Their coat, if you keep from using the clippers, is a harsh coat and doesn't tangle or mat very easily with minimal care. IF you use a mars coat king to do the stripping (removing dead hair) instead of clipping, you'll keep the coat's harsher texture which will repel dirt and keep cleaner than the softer coat that will come in if clipped with a clipper. The ragamuffin look is 'it' for these guys so not too much trimming otherwise.