The Xoloitzcuintle: The Dog That Guides Souls in Día de Muertos

Start with the name. In Nahua religious accounts, Xólotl was a deity associated with dogs, with darkness and death, with the underworld, and with being the twin of Quetzalcóatl, the feathered serpent (Secretaría de Cultura, "El dios perro Xólotl"; INAH, Manifestaciones míticas nahuas). The Xoloitzcuintle shares the first part of its name with Xólotl.

Most of what we know about these beliefs comes from one extraordinary book. The Florentine Codex was completed in 1577 at the Imperial Colegio de la Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, the result of years of work between the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua elders who described their own world in their own language (Digital Florentine Codex). In Book 11, which covers animals, the codex records the name *xoloitzcuintli* for a dog with no hair (Digital Florentine Codex, Book 11, folio 17r). The Getty's Digital Florentine Codex lets anyone read that page online.

Keep in mind what kind of evidence this is. The codex was written down after the conquest, by Nahua scholars working with a Spanish friar. It is the best record we have of Mexica belief, and it is still a record of a particular time and place, not a snapshot of every community in ancient Mexico.

The part of the story that brings people to this page is the crossing. In the Mexica belief recorded by Sahagún, the dead set out for Mictlán and soon came to a river. A dog helped them cross it at the very beginning of that long passage (Digital Florentine Codex, Book 3). INAH, Mexico's national institute of anthropology and history, describes the dog in the same role, helping the dead across the water at the start of their way to Mictlán (INAH, Tumbas de tiro).

So, which dog guides souls to the afterlife? In modern retellings, the guide is almost always the Xoloitzcuintle. That is a fair reading of the name and the god, but the archaeology is broader: ancient Mexico had other dogs too, and burials and figures from different regions involve more than one kind (UNAM Global, "La antigua leyenda del xoloitzcuintle"). The safest way to say it is the way INAH and the codex do: a dog helped the dead cross, and the Xolo is the dog most people now imagine in that role. If you would like to know more about the lord of that underworld, our story on Mictlantecuhtli picks up where the river ends, and gods of death sets him beside other cultures' rulers of the dead.

Long before the Mexica, people in western Mexico were burying dogs with their dead. In Colima, shaft tombs from the Ortices, Comala and Colima phases held human burials accompanied by dog remains and ceramic dog figures. INAH dates the Comala phase to roughly 200 to 400 CE and describes these dogs as companions in life and guides in death (INAH, Tumbas de tiro; INAH, Valle de Colima).

These are the famous Colima dogs, clay figures now held in museum collections far from western Mexico. The Brooklyn Museum holds one dated between 200 BCE and 300 CE (Brooklyn Museum, Colima Dog Figure), and the Walters Art Museum holds a dog effigy vessel from the same tradition (Wikimedia Commons, Walters Colima vessel).

What the tombs show clearly is a funerary bond between people and dogs. What each figure meant to the family that placed it is less certain, and archaeologists treat the meaning of individual pieces as a matter of interpretation rather than one fixed answer. Raúl Valadez Azúa, of the Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas at UNAM, has spent much of his career on the Xolo, ancient dogs and death, and his work sits behind much of what Mexican institutions say about the subject today (Gaceta UNAM, "Xoloitzcuintle, compañero de vida y muerte"; UNAM IIA).

For centuries after the conquest, the Xolo faded from view. It survived in scattered populations across Mexico, competing with European dogs introduced after the conquest (Federación Canófila Mexicana, Xoloitzcuintle).

The recovery came in the 1950s. The Federación Canófila Mexicana, working with other Mexican and international dog organizations, began systematic work to find, register and standardize the breed (Federación Canófila Mexicana, history). The date usually given for Mexican recognition is 1 May 1956, though breed histories also mention registration work in 1955 (Xoloitzcuintli Club of America). The international breed standard of the FCI describes the Xoloitzcuintle as an indigenous Mexican dog rescued by the Federación Canófila Mexicana (FCI breed standard).

If you have wondered how common Xolos are in Mexico, that history is the place to start: it is a breed brought back from scattered survivors, not one you will meet on every street, which is part of why seeing one feels special.

In August 2016, Mexico City's government publicly declared the Xoloitzcuintle part of the city's cultural heritage and a symbol of the city (Chamber of Deputies document). The Associated Press reported on Xolo owners in the capital who speak about the dogs' loyalty and their sacred underworld history in the same breath (Associated Press).

The declaration is a public cultural statement by one city. It shows how much the dog means to many people in the capital, but it is not a law that turns the Xolo into a single national custom. Mexico's traditions vary from region to region, and our guide to Day of the Dead by region shows how different the celebrations can be.

On an altar, a Xolo figure can stand for the dog that accompanies or guides the souls, and for the affection and companionship that carry on after death. Mexico's CONAMED, which set up Día de Muertos ofrendas in its own offices, explains the Xolo in just that way (CONAMED). The exact meaning, though, belongs to the family, community and place where the ofrenda stands, and one household's reason for including a Xolo may not be another's.

INAH's feature of 11 November 2025 describes the dog's continuing place in rituals, art and community life, including a Día de Muertos parade organized by the Museo Regional de Colima (INAH). The dog has also become part of a newer, tender practice: remembering pets. Mexico's official tourism portal lists 27 October as a day for welcoming deceased pets (Secretaría de Turismo, Día de Muertos), and in 2026 the Secretaría de Cultura's community program in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán invited families to build an ofrenda for the animals they had lost (Secretaría de Cultura, "Ofrenda a nuestras mascotas"). Events like these change from year to year, so check this year's dates with the organizer.

If you are setting up an altar of your own, our guide on how to make an ofrenda has the steps, and the cempasúchil marigold story explains the orange flowers that so often surround a Xolo figure. For the holiday as a whole, start with our Día de Muertos guide.

Yes, Dante is a Xolo. Miguel's hairless companion in Pixar's 2017 film *Coco* is a Xoloitzcuintle, and Disney's own behind-the-scenes material presents him that way (Disney España, "Dentro de Pixar: Dante, el perro Xolo").

*Coco* did more than anything else to make the Xolo famous outside Mexico. AP's reporting describes owners in Mexico City meeting curious strangers whose first question is often "Can I touch him?" (Associated Press). The film is a modern interpretation of the symbol, made by storytellers, and it is best enjoyed that way rather than taken as a guide to how every family builds its altar. Our story on the skeletons in Coco covers the rest of the film's dead, and calacas covers the cheerful skeleton figures you will see beside Dante on many altars.

The most famous place to meet living Xolos is the Museo Dolores Olmedo in La Noria, Xochimilco, Mexico City. The museum opened in 1994 and keeps collections tied to Dolores Olmedo, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and pre-Hispanic art. It describes its gardens as home to Xoloitzcuintles (Museo Dolores Olmedo), and El País reports that it reopened on 30 May 2026 (El País).

For the ancient dogs, the Museo Regional de Historia de Colima has a permanent, full-scale reproduction of a shaft tomb, with human remains, a dog skeleton and ceramic dog figures (INAH, Tumbas de tiro). The temporary exhibition *Xolos, compañeros de viaje* was shown at the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca from July 2022 to April 2023 (Museo Nacional de Antropología) and later at the Museo Regional de Historia de Colima in 2025 (Secretaría de Cultura).

Before you go, confirm current exhibitions, opening hours, access conditions and whether the dogs are out in the gardens with each museum directly.

The Xolo on an altar carries a long line behind it: dogs buried beside people in Colima some 1,600 to 1,800 years ago, a dog that ferried the Mexica dead across a river, a name preserved in a book finished in 1577, and a breed coaxed back from near disappearance in the 1950s. Families today give it their own meanings, from a guide for a grandparent's soul to a portrait of the dog who slept at the foot of the bed. However it arrives on your ofrenda, it comes as a companion, which is exactly what it has always been.

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