On a Monday walk in Mexico City we met Desire (Deh-SEER-eh) with her Xolo dog called Yolo. Little Yolo had been abandoned and then rescued by Desire.

The 3500-year-old Xoloitzcuintli is a pre-Colombian breed from Meso-America, usually hairless except for its cute inquisitive face. Its Indigenous name comes from their language Nahuatal: combining Xolotl, god of lightning and death, and itzcuintli, dog. In English they are often known as Mexican Hairless dogs. The artist Frida Kahlo had one of these ancient dogs whom she called Señor Xolotl who appears in several of her paintings.  Perros bailarinos (dancing dogs) in the museum in Colima.In the Colima museum pots in dog shapes were used in funeral ceremonies. The corpse was lowered into an eight-foot deep hole carved out of solid volcanic rock. A dog pot was placed in the grave, for dogs guided one through the Valley of Death; the pots were hollow to hold your soul.
This soulholder pot has a piece of corn between his jaws. Often raised for food, the fatter pot-bellied dogs were stuffed with corn, and served as a meal on feast days. Columbus and his half-starved crew hunted them into extinction on the first islands they visited, and they didn’t last too long in Eastern Mexico when Cortes and his invading company arrived either. However pockets of these pre-Colombian dogs survived and the Xoloitzcuintli are now making a comeback in Mexico. After all, who could resist such a face!There are also larger hairless dogs as well, at times resembling jackals.

Sign from the Mexico City zoo describing the indigenous Xolo dog.

From Carapan, a Mexican Folk Art Gallery, a short review of a Disney movie: Coco, the movie did a thorough research and a beautiful representation of the  Mexican tradition of Alebrijes. In the movie, Alebrijes are part of a tale in which Miguel crosses to the world of the dead with the help of a Dante, a Xoloiscuintli dog.