Handbag dog? No, Chihuahuas like our little Samson are lethal predators
WhEN I pop into the village shop with our white long- haired male Chihuahua, I tend to get some funny looks from the locals. And so does he, from their accompanying Labradors and other gundogs.
But then Samson — that’s his name — stares back at them with his little killer eyes, and the other much larger hounds show proper respect.
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but we bought Samson — named for his long hair and imaginary strength — for our elder daughter when she prepared to move to London a year ago. Ignorantly, we thought this tiny breed would be ideal for her new urban environment.
And, I have to say, the images of the minuscule three-month-old puppy posted by the local breeder were utterly adorable: our daughter fell almost in love with it in an instant. But we had to break her heart (and our promise).
After a few days living with us in deepest rural Sussex, it was clear that Samson could not be consigned to urban life, however well cared for by our dog-loving daughter. From the instant we nervously introduced him to the forest that surrounds our country home, he was hurtling around its acres with a kind of joyful abandon.
And this was in the depths of winter: so much for the conventional wisdom that Chihuahuas have to be cosseted and kept away from even the risk of stepping into a puddle.
Spectacular
Now, almost year on, he is the alpha male — we have a much older patterdale/Jack Russell cross called Peugeot (after the car he was born in).
When the two are with us in the forest, it is the Chihuahua, not the bona-fide terrier, who is the first to pick up scent or sight of any squirrel, rabbit or deer. And then Samson doesn’t so much run as fly: it’s especially spectacular to watch when his intended prey is a butterfly.
The thing is that while Chihuahuas are spoken of as if in the same category as a pug or a spaniel — which do seem to have been bred for a life of leisure as lapdogs — it is likely that their origins (apparently in Mexico) were as ratters to keep vermin under control, with a special advantage in being tiny enough to chase through the narrowest of apertures.
In other words, this is no lapdog, but a breed with what is termed ‘ a high prey drive’. To keep such a dog in a flat, let alone a handbag, is a misunderstanding of the nature of the beast.
All this helps explain the figures released by the insurance website payingtoomuch.com. They revealed that the breed of dog that causes the most expensive damage to a home over a lifetime is . . . the Chihuahua.
According to the firm, this smallest of all canines costs its owners, on average, £865 in repair bills.
No wonder: what does a prey-fixated exratter do when confined, possibly on its own, for hours in a flat? It goes berserk, chewing up anything and everything it can get its jaws around.
On that insurer’s destructiveness list, the next most ruinous breed is the dachshund, racking up costs of £810. This is not coincidental. Like Chihuahuas, miniature dachshunds have in recent years become increasingly fashionable. These breeds have been taken up by pop stars and trendsetters — the singer Adele has a miniature dachshund called Louie ( after Louis Armstrong)— and so they have caught on.
No fewer than 3,450 miniature smoothhaired dachshunds were registered with the Kennel Club last year, a tripling of numbers since the turn of the millennium.
It is the fastest- rising dog breed in London.
Yet this fashion accessory was actually engineered for killing, not smooching with pop stars: they are hounds, bred to hunt badgers, foxes and rabbits.
‘We certainly are concerned if people think these are handbag dogs; they need plenty of exercise,’ the chairman of the Dachshund Breed Council, Ian Seath, warned potential purchasers earlier this month. he added: ‘ We worry that a combination of today’s celebrity culture and “must have one now” attitude are leading to unsuitable owners.’
Of course, there is such a thing as negative publicity for a pooch, the opposite of the glow of being endorsed by such a deservedly adored singer as Adele.
Two months ago, the Mail published a series of peculiarly mesmerising photographs of Sir Philip and Lady Green getting on and off their brand new superyacht, Lionheart.
Both were carrying pet Chihuahuas. The stocky Sir Philip was holding one under his arm, like a rugby player with the ball about to enter a rolling maul. his wife Tina was clutching her Chihuahua to her very ample embonpoint — almost as if she were breastfeeding the pooch.
These pictures were published at the height of the row after the house of Commons Work and Pensions Committee had laid into Sir Philip for endangering the pensions of thousands of BhS employees: he had sold the firm to Dominic Chappell, a three- time bankrupt with no retail experience — and it duly went under.
Sybaritic
These images of the billionaire Greens, swanning about in sybaritic luxury on their gigantic yacht, while the redundant BhS workers were coming to terms with the fact that their company pensions might be as defunct as their jobs, were dreadful publicity . . . for Chihuahuas.
I could imagine people thinking: if that is the sort of dog that feels happy nuzzling up to Sir Philip and Lady Green, then I don’t want one in my house. As a Chihuahua owner, I cringed.
I also felt a little sorry for the pampered pooches being clutched by these Monacoresident fashion empire owners.
Perhaps I am doing the Greens an injustice as dog lovers, but I somehow doubt their Chihuahuas get much country air, let alone the chance to release their prey instincts in a forest. There are no forests in Monaco — the city-state described, unimprovably, by Somerset Maugham as ‘a sunny place for shady people’.
And, considering the wide currency given to those images of the Greens with their Chihuahuas being carried from Monaco to super-yacht and back, I wondered what my robust farming neighbours would feel when next they saw me in the village store, with my own white fluffy Chihuahua in tow.
But for all the local embarrassment, it is worth it. Because these are wonderful little companions; and as a man not hitherto greatly attached to our furry friends, I never thought I’d say that.