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One of Queen Elizabeth II’s corgis has passed away.

Monty, who was 13, died at Balmoral, the royal family’s Scottish estate, over the weekend, USA Today reported.

Monty appeared with the queen and actor Daniel Craig in a James Bond sketch that opened the London Olympics in July. He was in the news more recently after getting into a fight with a terrier owned by the queen’s granddaughter, Princess Beatrice.

Monty, whose cause of death wasn’t mentioned, once belonged to the queen’s mother, and was named after American horse whisperer Monty Roberts, who has advised the queen on both her horses and her dogs.

All of the queen’s corgis — there have been more than 30 — were descended from Susan, the corgi she received for her 18th birthday from her father, George VI, who got his first corgi in 1933.

Monty is expected to be buried at the pet cemetery at Balmoral started by Queen Victoria in the 19th century.

(Photo: NBC)

What breed would you expect a dog named Gizmo to be? How about Fifi? Rocky? Trooper? Bubba?

As you’ve probably noticed at the dog park, certain names seem to go with certain breeds.

Gizmos are usually shih tzus, Fifis poodles, and Rockys Rottweilers. Trooper is likely a Lab or German shepherd, and chances are Bubba’s a coonhound.

Beyond all the obvious instances — dalmatians named Spot, Great Danes named Marmaduke, beagles named Snoopy and collies named Lassie — there’s a tendency to bestow certain names on certain breeds, notes noted baby naming expert Laura Wattenberg.

So much so that she’s made a word cloud game of it. (You can find it, here)

“The names you like, and the kind of dog you like, seem to inform each other,” said Wattenberg, who has spent some time analyzing name-breed data and found some patterns within. “If you love the idea of a dog named Jethro, it says a lot about the breed of dog you’ll want.”

Wattenberg, best known as an authority on baby-naming trends, poured over the websites of animal shelters and breeders to compile a list of 5,000 dog names and photos. She found the type of name chosen was frequently dependent on the breed, according to the Vancouver Sun.

Wattenberg says she’s considering developing an online name-recommendation engine that takes a dog’s breed into account.

While the biggest trend in naming dogs is still the use of human names, giving them “fitting” names, based on perceptions of their breed, remains a strong tradition.

“Human names are rising across the board. But the kind of name you choose probably depends on the breed and your lifestyle,” she says. “The names reflect either our impression of those dogs or the kind of people who choose them.”

Hunting breeds are likely to get “down-home country names,” such as Bubba, Roscoe or Jethro; Corgis are prone to getting preppy names, like Lacey, Colby and Reggie; and Rottweilers often get macho names, like Rocky, Hunter and Duke, she says.

Pet owners also turn to a breed’s country of origin — or at least that most commonly associated with it — to come up with a name. Thus, there are many Chihuahuas called Chi-Chi, Diego and Pablo; poodles named Pierre, Fifi and Pepe; and Siberian huskies dubbed Sasha, Juneau and Yukon.

(Photo: A Rottweiler named Rocky, by John Woestendiek)

The same gene that causes some breeds of dogs to have short, stubby legs might also cause dwarfism in people, a new study says.

Scientists think this gene — called a retrogene — controls certain growth receptors. By comparing breeds like basset hounds, corgis and dachsunds to longer-legged breeds,  scientists isolated the gene that stunted growth in dogs, according to a paper in the new issue of the journal Science.

This gene hasn’t “been associated with dwarfism in the past,” says Heidi Parker, first author of the study, so it “opens up a new avenue, a new place to look,” for the cause of some types in humans

Parker, of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., compared the genomes of 95 short-legged dogs from eight breeds with the genomes of 702 dogs from 64 breeds without the trait. Then, in a more detailed analysis, the researchers pinpointed an extra stretch of DNA on chromosome 18 in every dog from the eight short-legged breeds, but in none of 204 control dogs they examined, according to an article in Science News.

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