Above) At the Blessing of the Animals event (top photo above) at the Summerville, Maryland, Farmer's Market, the priest from St. Pio Old Catholic Church dampens a chihuahua with holy water. Or maybe that's the priest's 7-Up.

The second photo (lower photo above) shows Jamie Morgan's longhair chihuahua Frankie obtaining a blessing at the grotto altar, from Father Jack Topper, during the annual blessing of the animals in Portlant, Oregon.

Below) A delightful photo taken at a Blessing of the Animals event in 1984, on Olvera Street, Los Angeles. I tend to think of this strange habit of dressing chihuahuas up like mariachis is the behavior of loco Norte Americanos, but here's an elderly Latina woman who does it!

So those sorts of Latino activists who got Gidget the Taco Bell dog kicked out of her advertising gig must be having fits trying to figure out how to rip into beautiful old ladies, without looking like the unreasonable loonies they tend to be.