This one's for the street doodle, or perrito blanco Mexicano

This piece was featured first on Sep 17 for One Good Thing, a weekly newsletter brought to you by Alexis Madrigal about his take on Bay Area art, culture & nature. Subscribe today.

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, I wanted to deliver an ode to the PBM, aka the Perrito Blanco Mexicano, or, as I call them here in Alta California, the street doodle.

The PBM has a dedicated Instagram page with the tagline, “Espacio dedicado a la verdadera raza de perros mexicana, los PBM,” a bit of wry Mexican humor. Because Mexico does have native dog breeds, including the iconic Xoloitzcuintle and the Chihuahua, both of which trace their heritage to pre-Columbian times.

The PBM, by contrast, is not even really one particular breed, or even one cross. This is not a labradoodle or a maltipoo. As I like to think of it: if you breed a chihuahua with anything fluffy, you get … a PBM. Perhaps because of this muddled parentage, the PBM is not accorded much respect as a breed, and the creator of the PBM Instagram account adopts a pose of aggrievement over this terrible omission from real Mexican history.

There’s some folk knowledge—that is to say, one article on the internet—that these dogs took off as middle class pets in Mexico City in the 70s, but honestly, who knows?

We have one of these dogs, of course. He is our beloved Laszlo, though like other Mexicans, he also has a nickname, Lalo. We got him through the wonderful pet adoption agency, the Milo Foundation. His mother was found in Fresno, pregnant, and she and her puppies were tended by a lovely couple in the Berkeley Hills.

After we got him, and Lalo took over my Instagram feed, one of my favorite Mexican artists spotted him as a PBM right away and tipped me off to the fan account. Did I order the perrito blanco Mexicano calendar that was available for a limited time only? Yes, I ordered two for the holidays, and if they showed up halfway through the next year, did I mind? No, I did not.

If you have a PBM, you know that they are very loving, a little nervous, and almost preternaturally silly. Do you want them to wear a hat and sunglasses? Sure. Ride in a backpack or in the basket of your bike? Como quieras. I often wake up to our dog lying on his back in the crook of my arm. How could such a delicious fluffy snack of a creature ever be so fully relaxed? These dogs were meant to be cuddled. Carried as much as walked.

His finest attribute is that he believes his love and attention should be precisely evenly distributed between all family members present in the house. While he’s not the smartest dog I’ve ever had, he can practically do trigonometry to position himself exactly between the four of us. Two people in the kitchen and two people in the living room? He’ll be in the dining room, of course, with sightlines to everyone.

Right now, as I write, Lalo could be playing with his best friend, a stinky brown hat. Or he could be staring at the window while siting on a pillow, his little paws on the back of the couch. Or he could be getting the zoomies in the backyard for just two or three minutes before trotting back into the house and curling up in the nearest soft place for a two hour nap.

Our deep ancestors bred dogs to aid them in the difficult and dangerous toil of life and as guides in the afterlife. The PBM has been bred—no, I should say, been called into existence—for modern times: an emotional support animal that fits neatly under an airplane seat.

There’s also a lesson, perhaps, about humans in the PBM. Strict interpretations of dog breeds have always freaked me out a little, because they are rooted in the same Victorian obsession with bloodlines and purity as eugenics. Not to be too serious in what is ultimately a newsletter-length joke, but what I love about the PBM is the endurance of a particular kind of dog that is a mess of different lineages. We street doodle owners can love our dogs (and the memes and jokes about our dogs) without taking any of it too seriously.

Or, as Lalo might say, “Arf.”

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Alexis Madrigal, Co-Host, Forum