Origin

                                                                                      Origin
                                                                            © O. Wade 2010

  Many years ago, an old Mexican, a peon, took it upon himself to graft together a pecan tree limb and a branch from a dogwood tree; technically the Canis uglyist nervosa. For five years the wizened little man faithfully tended and fertilized the fledgling graft, nurturing it through rainstorm and drought, through horrible winds and cold nights. 
In the third year, when the tree was ten feet tall, it began to bloom, and what a remarkable sight. Beautiful soft brown flowers with wispy black beards fluttered in the warm Mexican summer. The matured brown petals, scattered by occasional warm gusts, flitted and pranced about like tiny brown birds. Then one day all the remarkable petals were gone. Petite black buds freckled the green tree where the blooms had been.
The old man watched and wondered, fascinated as to what wondrous creation would come from the fuzzy black shoots. Many evenings he sat on the patio in his squeaky rocking chair, the soft muttering of the chair like an old friend as night softly draped a blue blanket over his creation
  One night, small sharp noises woke him. Standing from his bed, he went to the window and gazed through the blue night in the direction of the tree, for that is where the tiny sounds seemed to come from. For a long time he stood at the window and marveled at the teeny-tiny noises. He vowed that, at the first blink of daylight, he would rush to the tree.
  The first wink of dawn came and rested against his window, but it did not need to wake the old man, for he had been unable to sleep. He dressed quickly and rushed to his tree. Amazed, he stood with mouth agape. The limbs of the tree drooped and sagged under the burden of its fruit. Fallen brown-black fruit stippled the green grass beneath the tree.
  With trembling hand, the old man reached out to a limb and gently, lovingly cupped his palm around one of the tiny brown fruits. Overripe, it easily fell into his hand. Her peered into his palm. A being squirmed there no larger than the ball of his thumb.
  So that is the story of how the chihuahua came to be. It also solves the riddle of why the bug-eyed little bastards are so nervous.        Wouldn’t you be if your birth included a plunge to the ground from the top of a tree?
  And I ain’t lying!