Dante, the dog in Coco, is a xoloitzcuintle — the Mexican hairless dog, usually shortened to xolo.
The name is two Nahuatl words stuck together, and once you split them the whole thing stops being intimidating: Xólotl, the god associated with dusk and the underworld, plus itzcuintli, dog. The god’s dog.
Saying it, one piece at a time
The dictionary is unusually helpful here — it prints the pronunciation directly: sholoitscuíntle.1 It also records the variants you will see written, including xoloizcuintle and xoloescuintle, so if the spelling looks unstable to you, that is because it is.
-
start here xolo SHO-lo The x is a sh. This alone is what most people say most of the time.
-
add the middle xolo-its sho-lo-EETS The itz is a quick eets, not a separate beat you lean on.
-
the stressed part -cuín- KWEEN This is where the weight goes. Everything else is lighter than this syllable.
-
land softly xoloitzcuintle sho-lo-eets-KWEEN-tleh The -tle ending is one soft syllable. Do not turn it into tull.
In practice you will hear xolo far more than the full word, the same way nobody says Labrador Retriever twice in one conversation. Use the short form freely. Keep the long one for when someone asks what breed it is and you want to answer properly.
Not all of them are hairless
The surprise for most people: the breed comes in a coated variety as well as the famous bare one, and both are recognized in the standard. It also comes in three sizes — toy, miniature and standard — which is why two dogs that look nothing alike can be the same breed.2
| What you might assume | What is actually true |
|---|---|
| they are all hairless | there is a coated variety too |
| they are all one size | three sizes, toy through standard |
| the skin is delicate | it is, and they do get sunburnt |
| they are hypoallergenic | no dog reliably is |
| it is a rare novelty breed | it is a national symbol with a long record |
The sunburn thing is real and worth knowing before you compliment someone on their dog’s outfit. A xolo in a t-shirt in Mexico City is not being dressed up, it is wearing sunscreen.
The dog you were buried with
This is where the breed stops being a curiosity. Raúl Valadez Azúa, an archaeozoologist at UNAM’s Institute of Anthropological Research who has worked on the breed for three decades, puts the oldest finds at around the seventh century of our era, with hairless dogs turning up in funerary contexts and as guardians of spaces treated as sacred.34
The ceramic record suggests the breed took shape roughly two thousand years ago somewhere in western Mexico and spread from there about five hundred years later.5
And the Mexica practice attached to it is very specific. The dead were to be buried with a dog to help them on the journey to the underworld — and the tradition called for a tawny, reddish-brown one, not just any dog.3 The animal was a companion for a crossing, which is precisely the job Dante does in the film.
If you want the crossing itself rather than the dog, Mictlán has its own geography, and it explains a lot of the imagery you will see in late October.
Mexico City made the recognition official in 2016, declaring the xolo cultural heritage and a symbol of the capital.6 It is on Tijuana’s football club badge too, which is where Los Xolos get their name.
The word is still in daily use, aimed at children
Here is the connection almost nobody makes. Itzcuintli, the dog half of the name, did not stay in the dictionary of ancient things. It turned into escuincle, which is the ordinary, everyday Mexican word for a kid.7
It is popular register and mildly rough — you would say sus escuincles ya están grandes about someone’s children with affection, and ya cállense, escuincles to a room of them with rather less. Either way, every time a Mexican parent shouts it across a park, they are using a Nahuatl word for dog.
The other one you will hear at the vet or the park is pelón, which just means bald or shaved-headed.8 ¿Es pelón o con pelo? is the normal way to ask which variety someone’s xolo is, and it is a much more natural question than anything with the word hairless in it.
Talking about it without sounding like a tourist
Fine
- ¿Es xolo? — the normal way to ask.
- ¿Puedo acariciarlo? before touching. The skin is sensitive.
- Saying you know the breed from Coco. Everybody does.
- Asking whether theirs is pelón o con pelo.
Not great
- Calling it ugly, even affectionately, in front of the owner.
- Is that a Mexican hairless? shouted across a park.
- Touching a stranger's dog because it looks unusual.
- Asking if it is the dead dog from the movie.
That last one comes up more than you would think. Dante is alive for most of Coco; he is the one who crosses and comes back. Getting it wrong is harmless but it does announce that you watched it on a plane.
Two thousand years, one animated film, and a name that comes apart cleanly once somebody shows you where to cut it.
Hero photo by Correogsk, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Sources
-
Diccionario del español de México, xoloitzcuintle - El Colegio de México ↩
-
Gaceta UNAM, xoloitzcuintle, ¿compañero de vida y muerte? - Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México ↩ ↩2
-
Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas UNAM, historia del xoloitzcuintle en México ↩
-
Raúl Valadez, perros pelones del México prehispánico - Dialnet ↩
-
Excélsior, el xoloitzcuintle declarado patrimonio cultural de la CDMX ↩
-
Diccionario del español de México, escuincle - El Colegio de México ↩
-
Diccionario del español de México, pelón - El Colegio de México ↩
Test yourself
Tap an answer.
¿De dónde viene el nombre xoloitzcuintle?
¿Todos los xolos son pelones?
¿Por qué Dante acompaña a Miguel en Coco?
Difícil: ¿cómo se pronuncia?
Más difícil: ¿qué conviene evitar al hablar de la raza?
