California's latest export: Unwanted Chihuahuas

Many trends have started here on the Left Coast and migrated east across the United States. Add to that list this latest entry: Chihuahuas.

Yes friends, we apparently have too many of the little toe-nippers, and rather than just continue to euthanize them in our already overcrowded county animal shelters -- where they apparently surpass pit bulls as the No. 1 dog calling a county cell home -- we have taken to shipping them to other parts of the country, places that Paris Hilton and her Tinkerbell have only flown over.

The problem is this: Turned into a pop-culture icon by dogs like the aforementioned teacup Tinkerbell and Bruiser, Reese Witherspoon's pink-clad accessory in "Legally Blonde," the breed's popularity grew and the fickle public being the fickle public, well, the bulging-eyed pups followed those 101 Dalmatians right to doggie death row: the public animal shelters. Los Angeles animal shelters report about 300 Chihuahuas are turned in each month; similar numbers are reported in the Bay Area.