For Xolo, Beauty Is Skin Deep

By TRACI CARL The Associated Press

Published: May 26, 2007

MEXICO CITY - The star of the World Dog Show is not the soulful Labrador, the bulldog with attitude or even the manic Chihuahua.

This year, the hairless Xoloitzcuintles (show-low-ee-SQUINT-lees) are stealing the show in their native Mexico. Sleek and with batlike ears, the rare breed looks more like a cartoon character than a canine. Its history dates back to the Aztecs, and it has a special allure for asthmatics or those who just don't like cleaning up after a shedding dog.

Nicknamed "Xolos" by breeders and known in Mexico as "Itzcuintles," the breed has yet to come into its own. But the dogs are becoming more popular around the world. They can sell for up to $2,500 for a show dog, and past owners have included the Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

Breeders say Xolos were on their way to extinction in the 1940s when a group of Mexicans began searching for the dogs in remote, mountain villages and forgotten desert outposts, building a breed that today numbers about 5,000 worldwide.

Patty Hoover, a breeder from Selah, Wash., said she began breeding Xolos almost 20 years ago because she "married a man who didn't like dog hair on the floor."

There weren't many other Xolo owners around when she started, but that is changing.

"They are getting a lot more recognition," she said, videotaping Xolos as they pranced by at a Mexico City convention center. "The breeders are working really hard to promote them."

Stephanie Mazzarella, an asthmatic 44-year-old from Loxahatchee, began breeding them after her doctor told her she could never have a pet - unless it had no hair. Now she spends her free time trying to get others interested in her dogs.

"I put them in a puppy stroller and take them to the mall to try to get the public interested," she said as her 9-month-old puppy, Chabella, watched his competitors.

Xolos were common throughout Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest. They were considered sacred by the Aztecs, who sometimes ate their meat as a cure-all for illness or buried the dogs with their owners to help guide the human spirit to the afterlife. The dogs still are believed by many to have healing qualities.

Brenda Armstrong, who has four Xolos at home in Vancouver, British Columbia, said she had a friend whose Xolo was trained to wake her if her diabetic husband's blood sugar fell in the night.

"Mayan women still hold the dogs up to their stomachs to cure cramps," she said, playing with the leash of her friend's Xolo at the show.

Some 70 Xolos are competing in this weekend's World Dog Show.

The dogs have warm, soft skin and keep their coat oiled with glands found between their toes.

Some have a wiry shock of hair at the top of their head, and about 25 percent are born with a thick coat of fur, a genetic quirk.

Xolos range in weight from 10 to 50 pounds and come in three sizes: mini, a little larger than a Chihuahua; intermediate, about the size of a beagle; and standard, roughly the size of a Labrador.