Yet another celebrity has passed away.
The Taco Bell Chihuahua has died at the age of 15.
Although voiced by a man, the Taco Bell dog was actually a female named “Gidget.”
Her trainer reports that Gidget had had normal day with nothing to suggest that she was ill in any way.
Then while the trainer was watching television, Gidget “began making ‘strange noises’ and suffered a stroke.”
Another icon is gone, but I certainly hope we aren’t talking about this a month from now, wondering who will get custody of her pups or whether the vet prescribed too many drugs for her.
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Now, I’ve always been peeved at the grammar in those commercials. “Yo” means “I.” However, it’s almost never used in Spanish sentences, because “Quiero” is used only as a first person. “Yo” is simply redundant.
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Now, Gidget was a faulty dog by show dog enthusiasts.
You see, Chihuahuas must have what is called an “apple head.”
Apple heads are very different from Gidget.
I have not seen any studies on this condition, but I think we can at least question whether apple headed dogs might be predisposed to hydrocephaly, which is a bit of a problem in Chihuahuas.
Gidget was what is called a “deer-headed” Chihuahua. They aren’t preferred in the show ring.
But somehow I doubt that the Mexican pariah dogs that are the ancestors of the Chihuahua had these apple heads. Apple heads were very common in “English white terriers,” which I’ve always suspected were a partial ancestor of the modern Chihuahua.
The modern dog is really an invention of the show ring. We have some evidence of what these dogs might have looked like in Mexican and Meso-American Art, but I think the best evidence from which we can infer some idea of what they originally looked like. I think the breed that gives us the best idea isn’t from Mexico but from Western Canada. The Tahlta people kept a small hunting dog called the Tahltan bear dog. (Here’s another photo.)
*Yes, they were used to hunt bears, which explains why so many Chihuahuas have good prey drive. My grandpa even used his little Chihuahua bitch to flush grouse and tree squirrels, which further adds evidence to my theory that the two were related.
And then there is a dog called Techichi, which is probably the Mexican version of this little Native American dog.
Then they were crossed with small terriers, toy spaniels, and toy spitz breeds to produce the modern Chihuahua.
The apple heads look cool in the show ring. I don’t think they are of much use to the dogs or in keeping with their ancestry.
