CHIHUAHUA
A great little dog with a millenary history?
Alfonso Montefusco
Definitely grand, with a millenary history as well, but with aspects that will make us think bigger, just as is characteristic of the personality of this little dog!
We are in the southern part of North America, where today lies the Mexican Federal Republic, which includes as many as 31 states. Although Mexico is known for its beaches overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, the state of Chihuahua is not touched by the sea, being nestled in the north on the border with the United States through the deserts of Texas and New Mexico, to the east with the state of Cohauila and to the west with Sonora. It is the largest Mexican state, with a territory almost equal to the entire peninsula of Italy and certainly perhaps the only one that owes its worldwide fame to a dog that bears its same name: Chihuahua!
Walking through the capital of the same name, which has over 850,000 inhabitants, among many details that refer to the history of ancient peoples, it is also possible to come across giant images of the little Chihuahua, a great canine ambassador of the culture of these places.
If we go back many centuries, to the time of the pre-Columbian civilizations, we can discover the millenary roots of the civilizations of that period, which settled after the departure of the well-known Maya communities, made up of great architects, mathematicians, and astrologers. Even today, several scholars wonder how they were able to design temples and places of worship, strictly in relation to the topography of the planetary constellations of our solar system, without having the technological tools we have today. Certainly a mystery if you think that we are talking about works made almost 3,000 years ago. And even more mystery lies behind their departure, which left room for the Toltec communities, a nomadic population of scientists and warriors, who fused their cultural roots with those of the Maya, enriching the great spiritual knowledge.
Although these connections have helped build the great charm that hovers around the fairytale history of the Chihuahua, ancestor of the dogs of the Mexican Toltec populations, for the record, archaeologists and local guides markedly indicate the presence of animals in the villages, often for utilitarian purposes, but the dog was never predominant or an elected commensal, except in sporadic social classes. In some treatises, small-sized dogs with semi-long hair called Techichi are described, also depicted in some statuettes and bas-reliefs in temples and drawings. Many resemble in appearance the little dog we know today, but to assert that they are the ancestors of our Chihuahua is rather debatable and hardly demonstrable. And it can also be asserted that they may be small mammals bred, rather than dogs.
In any case, the dog had a particular relationship with esotericism, being chosen as a messenger of the world of the dead and protector against evil spirits. Used together with other animals, both for religious rituals and sacrifices to the various deities that dominated the religions of the time, but also as a food resource.
But returning to the fate of the Toltecs, it was destined to last very little, supplanted by the rapid rise and fusion of the Aztecs who, starting from 1200 AD, conquered more and more territory, absorbing the customs and traditions of the occupied areas. The Techichi dogs entered the favor of the Aztec aristocracy, thanks also to Emperor Montezuma II Xocoyotzin, under whom the empire reached its greatest splendor.
The last incarnation of the mythical Feathered Serpent, a deity deeply rooted in those territories for millennia, is Quetzalcoatl, a sort of messiah and medicine man who, in his existence, greatly influenced collective thought, managing to fight to definitively end the aberrant custom of performing human sacrifices. Before disappearing, he had predicted that he would return to bring salvation and wisdom, progress and innovation. When, starting from 1492, the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors had now arrived to conquer the new continent, they were interpreted by most as the return of the deities of the Feathered Serpent who brought salvation. This belief made the natives of the place vulnerable because the European intentions were anything but friendly and intercultural dialogue. They wanted to take over the place and enslave as much labor as possible. The excuse was always the same: bringing Culture, Knowledge, Civilization, and salvation thanks to our Lord God of Christianity. The emperor tried to build a collaboration with the colonizers, but was unfortunately killed. The upheavals of those years caused the loss of many resources and traces relating to the dogs of the time, but we are sure that the Portuguese and Spaniards had brought with them the ancestors of the small Portuguese Podengos and the Ratonero Valenciano. Dogs that most likely laid the foundations for the creation of the Chihuahua.
All we know ends around the mid-1500s thanks to the writings of Franciscan father Bernardino de Sahagun, who also notes the presence of small fawn-colored dogs, often hairless, that accompany the local people. The influence of hairless dogs often recurs, which have no reason to be considered native to Central America, but arrived from Asia through the movements of nomadic populations in pre-Maya times. Although other hypotheses consider the possibility of unexpected innate mutations in the canine genetic heritage worldwide, therefore potentially present on every continent.
Many interpretations have arisen about the real abilities of the chroniclers of the time, in objectively recounting what they encountered; if we think of Christopher Columbus who, after discovering the island of Cuba, in his letters to the King of Spain writes about Opossums as small domestic dogs, that do not bark and are able to climb trees, it tells us a lot about the European animal husbandry culture of those years, which did not yet foresee the existence of species different from those known, thus altering the credibility of the accounts. After all, Charles Darwin would only be born almost 3 centuries later!
History tells us that while all this was happening in the new continent, Europe was going through a period of consolidation of states and governments, had driven away the specters of the Middle Ages of previous centuries, overcoming plagues, famines, and an unusual global climate warming similar to what we are experiencing today. It was 1543 and Niccolò Copernico had published “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” and in royal courts and high bourgeois salons, small dogs brightened the days. But even earlier, works by various artists, among which those of Sandro Botticelli in the Sistine Chapel in 1482 stand out, show small dogs carried in bags, very similar to what is today’s Chihuahua. This makes us think of the real possibility of the presence throughout Europe of very small-sized dogs, such as the ancestors of the English Toy Terrier Black and Tan in Great Britain or the Continental Toy Spaniels in France.
Without debunking a myth of purely Mexican origin, it is appropriate to consider that the reduction in size in the domestic dog has certainly occurred everywhere in the world, biologically resulting in a morphological modification that expresses those typical characteristics of cranial bones and the positioning of the eyes; therefore, those neotenic features that we find in dogs like the Chihuahua, for example.
After American independence from the English empire, the presence of small dogs from the border with Mexico re-emerged. The United States was the first to take an interest in small dogs resulting from crosses that took place during the 18th century between native dogs and dogs imported by Europeans.
In 1884 we have the first evidence at a dog show in Philadelphia of a small dog representing a type called “Chihuahua Terrier” .
It was 1904 and the first Chihuahua to be registered in the Stud Books of the American Kennel Club was called Midget, marking from that moment the rise of a breed that originated in Mexican territories and was recovered thanks to the skillful work of American dog lovers and breeders.
In 1923 the American club was founded thanks to a group of passionate breeders, among whom Mrs. Ida Garret stands out, a journalist and breeder, who worked for over half a century in the selection of the ideal type of Chihuahua. Drafting the Standard was not easy, especially agreeing on different views regarding the carriage of the tail or the shape of the ears.
In 1952 the AKC decided to officially divide the two coat varieties, short and long, which have always been present in the recent history of the breed.
Naturally, commercial and diplomatic exchanges with Great Britain made it possible for the first Chihuahuas to arrive across the Channel, enjoying a slow but growing love for the breed. In 1906 at the Richmond show the first representatives of the breed were exhibited, the result of generations of dogs imported from the United States. Despite the great enthusiasm and interest in breeding these dogs, the two world wars caused a great slowdown, with the need to resume breeding and recovery of subjects after the Second World War. In 1949 the first British club for the protection of the Chihuahua was founded, indicating a type that stood out for some morphological traits, while preserving that salient personality expressed in its explosive character. Soon the success of the Chihuahua conquered the whole world, spreading to every nation; partly due to its unique peculiarity in the canine world, its very small size and partly to its millenary, somewhat fairytale and fascinating history that surrounded it. Naturally, not least, its general-like character!