Bobby Humphreys, a competitive bodybuilder from Boonsboro, Maryland, has always loved dogs, but until two years ago, he never really cared for small breeds. He always felt that his pets should fit his own image, and even made fun of his male friends who owned small dogs. But one day everything changed and today Bobby shares his home with no less than 37 adorable chihuahuas. Humphreys used to be a “Big Dog Guy” and he and his wife of 17 years had owned three Rottweilers. He loved their tough, imposing look and never even considered the idea of ever owning a small dog. In fact, he went as far as to poke fun at his male friends if they ever allowed themselves to be seen walking their girlfriends’ small canines. It was an ego thing, but one that Bobby quickly put behind him when he fell in love with Lady, a tiny Chihuahua that he now credits for getting him through the darkest period of his life. She opened his eyes to the love and support that small dogs are capable of offering unconditionally, and the big, strong bodybuilder is now what many would call a Small Dog Guy who looks after dozens of chihuahuas. Read More »

I always thought Chihuahuas were pretty harmless, but apparently they can be quite vicious in large numbers. The residents of Maryvale, a small town in Arizona, can certainly vouch for the fact. The town is filled with stray pooches that are terrorizing children and defecating all over the place. Local animal control officials say they’re finding it quite difficult to control the Chihuahua population. They’ve received over 6,000 calls from frustrated residents – three times higher than any other town in the state. According to Melissa Gable from Maricopa County Animal Control (MCAC), these dogs aren’t spayed or neutered so they’re always looking out for a mate and having babies. This makes the problem worse. “There’s a lot of dogs in the street,” said Stephanie Guzman, a resident. “People will start going crazy because they bark all night.” Read More »

Photos and videos of a functional Banco del Bienestar branch seemingly located in the middle of nowhere have been getting a lot of attention on Mexican social media this week. Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador was one of the very first people to get blamed for wasting government money on useless buildings after the photos and videos of a Banco del Bienestar branch located a long way from any human settlement, somewhere in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The building was used to mock Obrador’s “Fourth Transformation” of Mexico initiative, but a representative of the bank was quick to explain that although bizarre, the location of the branch actually makes sense. Read More »

After spending months looking for his lost pet Chihuahua, a desperate Tucson man has announced that he is offering his one bedroom home and the plot of land that comes with it to whoever brings his dog back to him. Eddie Collins lost his beloved pet, Jenny, back in April and he has spent every day since trying to find her. After searching every place he could think of, plastering posters all over Tucson and visiting dog shelters every day, he decided to increase his chances of finding Jenny by offering his most prized material possession as a reward. Whoever finds Jenny and brings her back, will receive Eddie’s one-bedroom apartment, his workshop and a plot of land in return. Read More »

As part of an unusual social experiment, a Mexican mayor disguised himself as a disabled person in need of assistance to test the attitude of local public servants first-hand. After receiving a number of complaints from disabled and other socially disadvantaged people about the treatment they received from social workers, Carlos Tena, the mayor of Cuauhtémoc, a town in Mexico’s Chihuahua state, didn’t know who to believe, the alleged victims or his co-workers. So he devised a plan to test the attitude of local social workers himself. Tena spent two months putting together a believable disguise and then visited public servants at both the Mayor’s Office and Social Services posing as a disabled man in need of help. Read More »

Chihuahua Julep, a cocktail bar that opened in central Helsinki, Finland, in August, has banned patrons from using smartphones inside the venue to encourage real-world social interaction. Initially, the owners of  Chihuahua Julep only encouraged visitors to put their smartphones away so that the light from their screens wouldn’t ruin the bar’s ambience, but after seeing that those who followed the recommendation seemed more relaxed and at the same time more engaged in conversations with their friends, they decided to impose an outright ban on handhelds. Now, anyone wanting to enjoy a drink inside the venue must store their phone inside a box on arrival. Read More »

Miracle Milly, a six-year-old Chihuahua from Puerto Rico, was awarded the title of World’s Most Cloned Dog, by the Guinness Book of Records, after scientists in South Korea created a whopping 49 genetically-identical copies of her. The controversial Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in Seoul, South Korea, has been creating pet clones since 2006, and last year they approached Vanesa Semler, Milly’s owner about the possibility of creating clones of the adorable pooch to try and solve the genetic mystery that made her special. You see, Mily is no ordinary Chihuahua. She’s held the Guinness record for World’s Smallest Living Dog since 2012, and scientists have been wanting to know exactly what made her so tiny. So in August 2017, Sooam researchers started making clones of Miracle Milly, the number of which has currently reached 49. Read More »

The Mexican town of Ojinaga, in the state of Chihuahua, made international headlines recently for a rather unusual raffle. Instead of being awarded to the winner, the prize – a brand new car – was buried as a time capsule, to be used by the winner’s relatives, 50 years from now. Who knows if we’ll even be driving cars in 2068, but one thing is for sure – one Mexican family will be the lucky winner of a brand new, unused 2018 car built in the Ojinaga town square, earlier this month. Dubbed “El Viajero Del Tiempo” (The Time Traveler), the car was bought by members of the local association in charge of organising the yearly “El IV Reencuentro Ojinaguense” festival. To make this year’s event special, they thought it would be a good idea to each put up a small sum of money so they could buy a new car, hold a raffle with only one winner, and then bury the car as a time capsule. Read More »

People usually train for years and invest in professional running gear just to be able to complete an ultramarathon, but María Lorena Ramírez, a native Rarámuri woman from Mexico who had not have any professional training or even basic gear, not only managed to finish a 50 km race, but actually win it. And she did it wearing a traditional long skirt and sandals made of recycled tire rubber. High quality running shoes, compression socks, Lycra suits, energy drinks, all these are considered essential by most runners participating in an ultramarathon, but they were of no importance to 22-year-old María Lorena Ramírez, a sheep herder from Chihuahua, Mexico, who showed up at the starting line of a women’s ultramarathon in Puebla in traditional clothing and equipped with just a bottle of water and a handkerchief. She stood out like a sore thumb among the 500 or so other runners from 12 countries around the world, but she didn’t seem to care. Read More »

An elderly British couple are so ‘crazy’ about dogs that they have no less than 41 furry pets in their three-bedroom Barnsley home. Lynn Everett, 58, and her husband Tony, 67, spend all their time caring for their 24 French bulldogs, ten miniature bull terriers, four Chihuahuas, and three Chinese cresteds. Walking the dogs is like a military operation, with over 120 poop scoops. They spend two hours a day preparing meals for the dogs, and it costs them about $46,000 a year in dog food, pet accessories, and vet bills. But they love every minute they get to spend with their dogs, and wouldn’t have it any other way. “Feeding time takes two hours, there are 41 dinners to prepare and 41 bowls to wash after,” Lynn said. “I have to remember who eats what as some have beef and the other have chicken. You have to be there when they’re eating so they don’t argue.” Read More »

As its name suggests, the Titanus giganteus, or Titan Beetle, is a giant of the insect world. Adults can grow up to 6.5 inches (16.7 cm) long and have incredibly strong jaws that can snap wooden pencils in half, so just imagine what they could do to your fingers. Luckily, these scary-looking bugs are quite harmless to humans. The Titan beetle is one of the most mysterious creatures on Earth. It lives unobtrusively deep in some of the South America’s  hottest tropical rain forests and only ventures out when seeking out mates. The larvae of this amazing insect have never been found, but judging by the large boreholes found in dead trees in their natural habitat, scientists believe Titan beetle grubs feed on decaying wood below ground for several years before reaching maturity. The size of these holes suggests the grubs are around two inches in diameter and up to a foot long. Just like the Atlas Moth, the Titan beetle doesn’t feed during its adult life cycle, using the reserves gathered in its pupa stage to fly around long enough to find a mate. Because they mostly sit around waiting for males to seek them out and fertilize their eggs, females have rarely been spotted.

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What do you get when you put together a passion for cars and a love for barbeque? Well, a Carbeque, of course. A vehicle that’s perhaps the only one of its kind, the Carbeque looks just as cool as it sounds. Owned by Australian Radio personality Merrick Watts, the car itself is based around a 1973 Ford Langau, powered by a 351 V8 with extractors, and styled similar to the ones used in Mel Gibson’s ‘Mad Max’ movies. The only difference here is that the trunk comes with a fully functional grill. According to Watts, the Carbeque is the answer to the question that’s been plaguing people since the first tailgating party. “How many times are you driving somewhere, and there’s nowhere you can have a barbeque,” he says. But with the Carbeque, “you just pull over, and you start cooking.” Watts was recently signed on as the face of Meat & Livestock Australia’s promotional campaign. As a part of the promotional activities, the Carbeque was unveiled in Parrmatta Mall on the 26^th of November, last year. Just before he powered up the car for the first time at the unveiling, he said, “It’s balls-out amazing! I took our entire marketing budget. It’s not just a car, I introduced the world’s first CARBEQUE!” While describing the car, Watts said, “Half car, half barbeque! It’s integrated, it’s part of its genetic make-up, it’s been spliced with a barbeque. You open up the boot, and out comes a cantilevered barbeque, the greatest barbeque you’ve ever seen. Not some ratty little hot plate thing, a full blown barbeque.” Well, it has to be, considering that Watts spent a whopping $156,000 (the money meant for marketing his show, Merrick and the Highway Patrol), on the car. According to the show’s producer Elle Conwell, “We can cook 9 (10.5 ounce) T-Bone steaks at one time. The Carbeque can pump out around 35 pounds of steak within the hour, or around 200 sausages. The roasting hood means that this Carbeque is ideal for cooking multiple dogs at anytime – depends on your taste. Maybe three Chihuahuas or one larger German Shepherd!”

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La Pascualita or Little Pascuala is a bridal mannequin that has “lived” in a store window in Chihuahua, Mexico for the past 75 years. That is quite a long time for a bridal gown shop to retain a mannequin, but then the dummy has a rather strange history behind it. According to an urban legend, La Pascualita isn’t a dummy at all, but the perfectly preserved corpse of the previous owner’s daughter. For years, the story of La Pascualita has been drawing loads of visitors, including media personalities, from all over Mexico to Chihuahua. Now, people from South America, the US and Europe have also started paying visits to the corpse bride. People smudge their noses up against the shop window, staring at the dummy, trying to figure out if she is real or not. They are taken in by her mesmerizing gaze and realistic-looking features. Most people walk away convinced that she has to be real.

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This is where you have to go if you want to see the biggest crystals on the planet. Found in Naica mine of Chihuahua, Mexico, the Crystal Cave of Giants is a chamber hosting some of the most amazing crystals you’ve ever seen. They look like silver or golden giants, and reach 11 meters in length, 1.5-2 meters in diameter and 55 tons in weight. Until 2007, the reason for their abnormal size was unknown, but now it’s clear it has something to do with mineral rich water the crystals bathed in for millions of years and the constant temperature than never drops bellow 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Ever since it was uncovered, The Crystal Cave of Giants has sustained considerable giant from the outside world, so the mining company operating in the mine has installed iron doors to seal off access.

Photo: Alexander Van Driessche/Wikimedia Commons