The gorgeous portrait above is Madonna with her chihuahua Chiquita as they appeared in the music video Human Nature (1994).

Madonna's three chihuahuas were Chiquita, Rosita, and Evita. Chiquita had a collar from Tiffany's that cost thousands of dollars. She was well ahead of Paris Hilton is using chihuahuas as fashion statements. They were obtained for Madonna by her close associate and Miami nightclub queen Ingrid Casares, herself an heiress and socialite and widely believed to have been Madonna's lover.

Whereas Paris Hilton is a genuine animal lover, Madonna could not care any less about dogs or cats or pets of any kind.

She carried the dogs into public displays for attention but she was never the one who fed them, never walked them, did not play with them when not on camera.

That was one of the gazillion things her sister trashed her for in her bitter biography Life with My Sister Madonna (2008).

Alas, when Madonna was tired of her chihuahuas they ended up in a notorious and illegal "rescue" shelter with a chihuahua hoarder in Burbank. Chiquita and Evita eventually found a good home with Patricia Wrightfield. The photo bottom right shows them with Wrightfield who managed to get them away from the Burbank Hoarder in 2005.

But hoarder Kimi Peck would not part with Rosita, who was kept in a cage by a drafty door where she lost all her teeth, caught pneumonia while in a state of extreme malnutrition, and died in woeful misery.

When all three cast-offs were most in need, someone who had seen their condition in the so-called shelter contacted Madonna's business offices, thinking she might like to intervene. The caller was told, "It is no longer Madonna's responsibility, good-bye." So I no longer make excuses for Madonna. She's a heartless cretin.