Legal sources for the study of animals:

An approximation from the dogs-humans interaction in Mexico City during the Porfiriato

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to present an approach to the usefulness of legal sources for the study of the history of animals. In this case, emphasis is placed on the dogs of Mexico City (stray and company), during the period known in the history of Mexico as the Porfiriato, based on the analysis of some notes published in capital newspapers, of edicts and published regulations by the City Council, as well as some contracts entered by the capital's government with private agents who were entrusted with the slaughter of the dogs. What this documentation reveals are a series of human-dog interaction problems, such as attacks on people, particularly children; the distinction, at least formal, between stray or stray dogs and those pets; concern about the spread of rabies and the attempt to contain it through culling and; the series of provisions that tried to regulate such interaction.