The Chihuahua

I decided that I was going to walk around my neighborhood today for about an hour with my camera and I found a few interesting things. This is a picture of my neighbors dog and he was quite curious about me, and he also felt a bit threatened, so it was hard for me to get to a lower level to get some good shots of him. After my hour walk, I returned home, looked through my photos and decided that there was something that I was curious about and that was the association with Mexicans and Chihuahuas.

The smooth hair chihuahuas are from Pre-Columbian Mexico. The reason I say Pre-Columbian is because the other theory is that they were brought with the Spanish Requisition. Mexican folklore and archaeological finds indicate that the chihuahua was the first dog in the Americas. The breed was named after Chihuahua, Mexico which is in northern Mexico. It is the largest state in Mexico by area, slightly bigger than the United Kingdom.
To many, associating the chihuahua with the Mexican people is a stereotype, but it is actual history, the chihuahua is a true Mexican canine.

Which explains why there are so many in my neighborhood.

My first encounter with a chihuahua was when I was a young girl around the age of 8. My great-aunt Julia owned a chihuahua that was very aggressive. She would visit my grandmother Irene from Millen, Ga. and you could not get near Aunt Julia. The dog would always sit right next to her on my grandmother's living room sofa, and would bark and growl if you even entered the room. The closer you got to Aunt Julia, the more aggressive the dog became. Needless to say, I feared this dog, and from that experience never liked chihuahuas.

Almost 40 years later I have seen more of these dogs in California than any where else, and am still a little skeptical when I am around them, but I am getting use to them and discovered that they are not all as aggressive as Aunt Julia's dog, but they appear to be very protective.