) averages only a bit over 1 kg.
Unable to agree on species classification because of features
that do not conform to the fox family, scientists finally assigned the
fennec fox
a separate genus, fennecus zerda or
vulpes zerda.
The
fennec fox also has huge ears which help dissipate heat and enable him to
hear his prey before it hears him. The Chihuahua shares that amazing
characteristic, and for the same reasons.
The tiny little dog that is believed to have originated in Mexico and the
desert southwest also has remarkably oversized ears. The Chihuahua also
shares another strange physical anomaly, he drinks less water than other
dogs his size.
that serve as shade
during the rare times the nocturnal fennec is exposed to sunlight.
Heavy dew produced by cold offshore currents collect on the back of the ears, which explains how the tiny creature can survive indefinitely far from any known source
of water. With his oversized ears,
the Chihuahua is every bit as appealing as the fennec fox which sadly,
is now on Appendix Two of the Cites list.
Is/was there ever a genetic connection between the fennec fox and the Chihuahua?
No one knows. Scientists would say they are two different species and
cannot interbreed. They probably never heard of a mule. A cross between an
ass and a horse? Impossible! They said the same thing about the
Bengal Cat, a cross between domestic cats and the Asian Leopard Cat. (see below)
The Chihuahua’s large
luminous eye is quite different
from any other dog breed but characteristic of desert dwellers
such as the Arabian horse and the camel. Many Chihuahuas today have
remnant "eyebrows" and long lashes as are found in such desert animals.
Although most AKC breed standards call for "up on toes" thick foot pads, the
Chihuahua's long narrow feet are more suited for digging and running on sand.
Fennecus zerda
also has long, thin, flat feet that
enable it to scoot over the shifting sands from Morocco to Egypt
to the Sinai to Arabia.
The early Chihuahua had the same long toes and narrow feet
but we do love to tinker with
nature’s design! We
show folks decided that a small and dainty foot with the toes
well split up but not spread would look better in the
show ring
even though photos of early Chihuahuas show a distinctive
“hand-like” foot with long, thin finger-toes.
Another unusual characteristic is the
Chihuahua's over-sized ears "flaring
to the sides" also as shown in the Fennec
Fox (below). The are many dog breeds with naturally erect ears but NONE as
proportionately large and off-standing.
Chichis are said to need other Chihuahuas in order to live happily.
Notably, unlike any other fox, the fennec lives in groups of eight to ten.
The Fennec fox has weak dentition, a very rare condition in a wild
species. ChiChi owners
attribute their breed's poor dentition to the foreshortened muzzle.
The fennec fox above displays the huge ears, the big round eyes, and the petite
muzzle associated with the Chihuahua breed.
Look
closely at the fennec fox's untypical muzzle. He has razor-sharp little
teeth. Most "toy breeds" have tiny teeth but the Chihuahua has tiger
teeth and he can (and should) gnaw a raw beef bone! Give him a small rib
bone every few days and skip the dental bills with which Toy Breeds are often
plagued.
The Chihuahua has
terrier-like qualities
(highlights from the Chihuahua Breed Standard) for a very good reason.
He had to find dinner and he needed
alert, swift-moving determination
to survive out there.
Given
opportunity, the Chihuahua seeks precisely the same food as does
the fennec fox; vegetation, little rodents, lizards, and insects. Any Chihuahua owner
will describe their irresistible, irrepressible
urge to chase and eat bugs! But let's cease to speculate because
there are fascinating facts on record.
The Foxy Chihuahua
The fennec fox was in fact,
successfully crossed with the Chihuahua in the 1980s. The result was a
less nocturnal, more social and thus, more marketable "fox". The miniature
fox was popular with exotic animal sellers - and the college kids who were paid
to carry, feed, and fondle the kits around
the clock.
Crossing
species, as in the horse-donkey which produced the mule, is irresistibly
possible. In the
1970s, the Asian Leopard was discovered to be immune to feline
leukemia. The University Of California was researching childhood leukemia
and working with cat breeder Jean Mill, they imported Asian leopards to achieve the said-to-be impossible feat of
combining different chromosomes to create smaller leopards that could
be handled for research. The
spectacularly spotted result became the Bengal, a popular show cat and
house kitty. Photo courtesy
BobsDenBengals.
Hairless Chihuahua?
So
come, let’s have a look at some of the theories and facts
that contribute to the appeal of the world’s smallest dog.
Some breed historians think the ancestor of the Chihuahua was a hairless dog that existed in Mexico, Central, and South America. Folklore surrounding the Xoloitzcuintli has become confusingly
interwoven with that of the Chihuahua but we don’t believe them to
be related.
The rectangular head shape of all hairless dogs is absolutely
unlike the Chihuahua's unique rounded skull. Hairless-type
dogs have long, round, whippy tails whereas the Chihuahua has a
flattened, stiff, furry tail and the
long claw-like feet of the early Chihuahua are seen in no other
breed.

Chihuahua Origin?
There are plausible theories that place the breed’s
ancient roots in Egypt or the Sudan, from which it migrated or was
taken across the
Bering straits, though the Mediterranean countries and
thence to Malta. Physical
evidence connects the Maltese “pocket dog” to the Chihuahua.
The easily verified characteristic shared by the pocket dog and the
Chihuahua is the soft spot in the skull known as molera. The cranial gap closes in other canines just as it does in the
human infant but in most purebred adult Chihuahuas, the molera can be easily
detected.
Digging Chihuahua History!
As with all speculation, there are interesting glitches.
A major “oops” in the theory that dogs came to the Americas
by way of Chinese sailing vessels is that small dogs of North America
were revered by the earliest humans as evidenced by Indian Knoll, a
two-acre site in Kentucky U.S.A. Dr. William Web found 21 small dogs interred
in graves dated 3000 B.C. The
Kentucky dig provides irrefutable evidence that dogs were domesticated
in North America long before they could possibly have arrived
on Chinese vessels making port in Mexico.
There is more. As recorded
in the authoritative publication Walker’s
Mammals of the World, Fifth Edition, Volume II, the oldest
documented remains of domestic dogs, dating from 11,000 and 12,000
years ago, were found respectively, in Idaho (NW United States) and in
Iraq which borders Turkey and Arabia.
The Toltec’s Techichi is a more recent ancestor of
today’s Chihuahua, as represented by carvings in the monastery known as Huejotzingo, situated between Mexico City and Puebla, constructed by Franciscan Monks circa 1530.
The Toltec reign gave way to the Aztecs who seem to have
adopted the Techichi, using them for religious
sacrifice. The Aztec used
rattles such as this Moche rattle with a startlingly perfect Chihuahua
head on one end and a small human head on the other!
As staying alive became easier, the people had more time to spend on
such matters as breeding dogs. Archaeological
evidence shows that progressed from an
edible interest to spiritual significance, and finally, to the
ultimate luxury of providing nothing more than companionship.

So
we have come full circle, developmental history having brought us back
to Mexico and the southern United States. Perhaps the
Chihuahua's ancestors, transported on Chinese trading
vessels, originated in the Egyptian desert and were related to fennec zerda,
the little “dog” that is so unusual it has its own species
classification.
Wherever
he came from, the smallest domestic dog thrived in northern Mexico and
what was to become the American Southwest.
Chihuahua Spirit Dog
The many dialects of the First Americans afford little in
the way of written descriptions. Native Americans trace creation and history
though the spoken record, relying on The Story Teller to pass the past from one generation to the
next. One story clearly relates to the Chihuahua.
It was believed that not only could the little dog be a
companion in this world but that the sins of the
master were transferred to the dog so his human could gain safe
passage to the other world.
Writing of the little dog’s spiritual assistance, Fray Bernardino de Sahugun
said the deceased were burnt, encircled by clothing and belongings but "he who had nothing went bare and
thus suffered greatly." So it was that the little yellow dog
"... bore the dead one across the place of the nine rivers in the land of the
dead.” Knowing the utter and complete devotion of the
Chihuahua, that is believable.
In the
Aztec religion, the color of death is yellow. So "the little
yellow dogs" were sacrificed in order to precede their masters to the other
side where they waited to aid them across the ninth
river. The Story Teller speaks of “a yellow one that wore a strand
of slackly spun cotton for a collar. It is told he takes the dead across the ninefold river to Meitlantecutli.
There the waters are wide, dogs are the ferrymen, and when he
recognizes his master, he leaps into the water in order to take him
across.”
When one experiences the love
and loyalty of a Chihuahua, it is easy to understand how a highly developed culture
could believe that such a dog would gladly assume the sins of its beloved
person.
The Mexican Chihuahua
Perhaps
that is why Montezuma II, last of the Aztec rulers, is said to have
had hundreds of Chihuahuas in his palace. More recently, General Santa Ana, (the dictator of
Mexico who sold northern Mexico to the United States in 1848) also
kept large numbers of golden fawn Chihuahuas. They went with him into battle, no doubt to guide his soul
across the ninth river should he be slain. Many Chihuahuas were in his camp when he was finally captured in 1836.
The theory that places the Chihuahua’s development in Europe with the
assumption that it arrived in the New World in the arms of Spanish
explorers totally ignores recorded history. The Spanish had a singular use for dogs during that time.
When there was no local game
or injured
horses to be slaughtered, they raided Indian settlements for food
which included the small dogs
kept for sacrifice or as pets.
Hernando de Soto wrote that dogs were a major source of meat for
his troops during exploration of the southern United
States. The Spaniards not only
decimated the Indian population from the Florida peninsula to Mexico,
they wiped out thousands of domesticated dogs.
It makes sense that the Native American camp dogs most often sparred were baby-eyed Chihuahuas.
Larger camp dogs and those with less soulful expression were slaughtered
first. Of this we can be certain, every Chihuahua owner is deeply
grateful that the littlest dog escaped the voracious appetites of the
Spaniards!
The Modern Chihuahua
The
first record of the Chihuahua as a breed occurred about 1884 when
enterprising Mexicans began selling them to tourists in the border
markets. The
first Chihuahua to be officially registered was a dog called
Midget
who entered the American Kennel Club stud book in 1904 along with
three others. By 1915,
thirty Chihuahua were registered in the States and that number jumped
to over 25,000 by the early seventies!
The
breed has always been popular with celebrities such as Spanish-born band
leader Xavier Cugat and Miss Lupe Velez, a famous actress of the
1930's shown here with her tiny Chihuahua, little King. She fed him with an eye-dropper
(at left), no doubt because it was the “dramatic” thing to do.
The great
opera star Enrico Caruso was
seldom seen without his pack of Chihuahuas and
even at the height of the financial depression, the famed Florence
Clark (pictured right) won prizes with her Chihuahua champions in the 1934
Westminster
Kennel Club show in New York.
The Chihuahua
is one of only a few breeds that moved into England from the United States. By 1897, a Chihuahua was formally exhibited
at the Ladies Kennel Club Show. UK (United Kingdom) registration
privileges followed in 1907 which would appear to be a meteoric rise
to fame except that it was seventeen years before the next Chihuahua
was registered!
The Chihuahua Club
of America (CCA) was founded in 1923 but less than one hundred
Chihuahuas were recorded by
the beginning of WWII. The
low breeding population was critically impacted by the bombing and
devastation which followed. By
1949, there were only eight Chihuahuas officially accounted for in Great
Britain.
As post-war families recovered, many
Brits turned to dogs for solace and with food and furnishings still scarce, a logical
pet choice was the Chihuahua. Easily
fitting in cramped quarters during the rebuilding, cheap to feed, the
littlest dog filled the empty arms and hearts of those who had
suffered terrible losses.
The Chihuahua comes in two coats In America, the Long and Smooth coats were
shown together until 1952 when they were separated into two varieties for
the show ring. Numbers climbed rapidly and by 1953, there
were 111 Chihuahuas registered with The Kennel Club.
Smooth and Long Coat Chihuahuas
are still interbred in the States, resulting in both coat varieties in
the same litter. Well over 20,000 Chihuahuas are AKC registered each year. They
are extremely popular because they are such wonderful companions and
easy-to-care for "lapdogs."
Whether breeding or judging the Chihuahua,
we hope you will bear in mind his developmental history and evolution. He is a clever little dog, gigantic in heart and personality.
Clearly driven by strong survival instinct, he “pancakes” to prove it!
Flattening on the floor
is not cowering - "pancaking" is retained instinct unlike that of any other breed. In
his genetic memory this littlest canine remembers dodging hawks swooping
overhead. The Chihuahua is the world's smallest dog but he has a huge
brain and his extreme intelligence allowed him to survive and thrive against
all odds.
Indeed, the Chihuahua is a
survivor. He charmed the Conquistadores and escaped the cooking pot. Blessed
with the brains of an elephant, the personality of a teddy-bear and in-born
devotion to humans unsurpassed by any other dog breed, the world's littlest
dog stands tall.
See the UKC and AKC
Chihuahua Breed Standards in side-by-side comparison.
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