Petroglyph dog from central Arizona's Palatki Cliff cave dwellings. This ancient drawing truly evokes the chihuahua, or techichi as it was known before the arrival of Europeans.

When the chihuahua first began to gain a new popularity in the Victorian era, it was initially called the "Arizona dog" as it either survived in a feral state in American deserts contiguous with Mexico; or, as is more likely, it was kept in the American Southwest by Latin American and Mexican American families. The chi is, in any case, as much a native to the Gulf States and American Southwest as to Central America. [Photo courtesy of Mark Gibbons]