What Do You Know About the
“Taco Bell” Dog?
Author and studio animal trainer, Sue Chipperton joined me in this episode to talk about her recently released book, A Famous Dog’s Life: The Story of Gidget, America’s Most Beloved Chihuahua. While Sue has trained many animals for roles in commercials, television and movies, her book mainly focuses on her life with Gidget the famous “Yo Quiero, Taco Bell” dog and the fascinating world of Hollywood animal training. Sue shared with me what it was like to train such a famous dog, how she selects animals that will be trained for roles in movies, commercials and television, and how Gidget surprised everyone by biting Antonio Banderas on the nose when he got to close. This is truly an inspiring story!
BIO:
Originally from England I moved to the States when I was 19. My training background started with marine mammals in Florida when I worked at Ocean World in Fort Lauderdale and trained dolphins, sea lions, seals and river otters.
For the past 16 years I have worked for Studio Animal Services training animals for movies, TV, commercials and print. Mostly I train dogs. Although cats, birds, rats, squirrels...they all fall into my realm of training. Some days I get to take a cage full of rats to a CSI set on the back lot of Universal Studios, other days it might be a yellow Labrador running on the beach in Malibu, sometimes a cockroach on a wall. Always different, usually interesting. Sometimes...you get to lay flat on your back in the pouring rain while Brad Pitt jumps over you on a rooftop in downtown Los Angeles and you release pigeons as he passes over your limp, wet, pathetic looking body. Not quite how I had imagined meeting him. I have trained many dogs, but some of the highlights were Gidget the Taco Bell Dog and "Bruiser" the Chihuahua from the Legally Blonde movies.
I have also worked with a local search and rescue team and started training my cattle dog mix "Beans" as a search dog - unfortunately we could never complete our training due to my work schedule, but it is something I would like to pursue again in my future.
Currently I live north of Los Angeles with Beans, Tula (French bulldog), Hank (blue weimaraner) and Serious an English bulldog.