A Walk Through the Beloved Royal Dogs

In April 2024, it was announced that His Majesty The  King had become patron of the Royal Kennel Club, stepping into a role which had been held by his mother, the late Queen, for 70 years, and in fact, every monarch back to his great-great grandfather, King Edward VII, who became the club’s first patron in 1873 when he was Prince of Wales. Her Majesty The Queen, meanwhile, has been the royal patron of the animal rehoming centre, Battersea, since 2017, and in 2011 adopted a Jack Russell terrier, Beth, followed by another, Bluebell, in 2012.

At the Coronation in 2023, the press and public were charmed to learn that likenesses of Beth and Bluebell had been embroidered along the hem of The Queen’s Bruce Oldfield gown, a small, playful detail but one with a clear message about the integral role dogs play in the Royal Family’s life. As The Queen told an interviewer on BBC Radio 5 Live, “The nice thing about dogs is you can sit them down, you could have a nice long conversation, you could be cross, you could be sad, and they just sit looking at you wagging their tail.” For anyone in the spotlight, it must be comforting to know that a dog offers unconditional love and loyalty. Dogs only know that their owner is special to them. If that owner also happens to be royal, they remain blissfully unaware.  

When Beth sadly died in November last year, it made headline news. She and Bluebell had become quite the celebrities, posing with their owners and often accompanying The Queen on both official and informal engagements. And when the Duchess of Cornwall (as she then was) guest-edited Country Life in July 2022, the pair appeared on the magazine’s famous ‘Girls in Pearls’ page, each proudly sporting a pearl necklace. There had been speculation over whether The King and Queen would decide to get another companion for Bluebell and, if they did, whether it would be another terrier; The King also had a much-loved Jack Russell – Tigga – who died in 2002 at the grand old age of 18.  

Then, during a visit to Canterbury in February this year, The Queen revealed that she did in fact have a new eight-week-old puppy, rescued from Battersea. When asked what kind of dog it was, The Queen replied, “You may well ask, a bit of everything … It’s called Moley. It looks just like a mole.” Moley, it seems, is not the only new palace pooch, as The King has also recently been given a new puppy, Snuff, a Lagotto Romagnolo, a rare Italian breed which dog-watchers will remember won Best in Show at Crufts in 2023.

The King is said to ‘besotted’ with the new arrival, as Moley and Snuff become the latest in a very long line of royal dogs. Along with 36 per cent of the UK population, the Royal Family are enthusiastic dog owners. Orla, who belongs to The Prince and Princess of Wales, sometimes appears in family photographs, as did their former pet, Lupo. Both spaniels were bred and given to the couple by Catherine’s brother, James Middleton, who has been very open about how his dogs have helped him overcome mental health barriers. 

Princess Anne favours bull terriers, while the Yorks have a clutch of Norfolk terriers (and also look after the late Queen’s last two corgis, Muick and Sandy). Going back through the generations, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester (parents of the current Duke) had Australian and Scottish terriers; Prince George, later Duke of Kent, had a Great Dane, an alsatian and a chow, while Princess Margaret was fond of Sealyham terriers. At one point she had two called Pippin and Johnny, although Johnny rather disloyally transferred his affections to The Queen Mother when Princess Margaret was convalescing after a bout of measles. 

And, of course, there is the breed which will be forever associated with British royalty: the Pembrokeshire corgi. These endearing little dogs became a Windsor family favourite in 1933 when Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret played with the children of Viscount Weymouth, who had a Welsh corgi puppy. After much chatter from their daughters about their sweet new playmate, the Duke and Duchess of York enquired about buying a dog from the same breeder of the Weymouths’ puppy, Thelma Gray of the Rozavel Kennels at Pirbright.

They chose Rozavel Golden Eagle, known by his pet name of Dookie (given to him by the kennel maids at Rozavel when they learnt the identity of the pup’s owner). Dookie was, according to his namesake, the Duke of York, “so intelligent, and so marvellously patient with the children”, but corgis, bred as herding dogs, are genetically predisposed to nip occasionally at visitors’ heels, and Dookie often disgraced himself with bad behaviour. “He is the black sheep of our family,” said the Duke, “and, like most black sheep, he is probably the favourite, having earned his position most unjustly.”

The Yorks had moved to Royal Lodge on the Windsor estate in 1931, a substantial property with plenty of room for dogs. Soon, Dookie was joined by another corgi from Rozavel, Jane, together with Choo-Choo the Tibetan lion dog and three yellow labradors, Mimsy, Stiffy and Scrummy. Dogs completed the York family’s image of domestic contentment, captured in photographs by Lisa Sheridan and Marcus Adams, and circulated widely in The Illustrated London News and other magazines. Queen Elizabeth II owned around 30 corgis and ‘dorgis’ during her lifetime – the latter the result of a liaison between Princess Margaret’s dachshund Pipkin and one of The Queen’s corgis, Tiny.

Most are descended from Susan, who was an 18th birthday gift to Princess Elizabeth from her parents in 1944. Susan, who lived until 1959, accompanied her mistress on her honeymoon in 1947, and as matriarch of the royal corgi dynasty, was the grandmother of Whisky and Sherry, who in turn became childhood pets of Prince Charles and Princess Anne. Whenever The Queen was away on tours or official engagements, the corgis were usually cared for by Nancy Fenwick, wife of the gamekeeper at Windsor, but it is clear Her Majesty very much liked to have them around her. During one summer at Balmoral, in 1981, no fewer than 13 corgis went along too.   

This, however, is modest compared to her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria, who owned a staggering number of dogs. After her death in 1901, there were no fewer than 88 in the royal kennels of all types. Most of them were housed in well-appointed luxury in kennels at Windsor, under the supervision of manager Hugh Brown and his assistant Mr Hill. The occupants enjoyed individual compartments warmed by hot water pipes and could meet their royal owner as she walked up and down a covered walkway known as the ‘Queen’s Verandah’ during regular inspections. Her favourite dogs however, were kept close by. During the 1840s, The Queen favoured Skye terriers and dachshunds, including two little sausage dogs called Däckel and Waldman (‘Waldie’).

Däckel, who had been a gift from her Coburg relatives, was an expert ratter, and in November 1849, Victoria noted in her journal that he had caught a huge rat in the Queen’s Room at Windsor. Confusingly, successive pets were often given the same name, but with a number to differentiate it from its predecessors, in the same way monarchs take a regnal number. By the 1860s, The Queen’s deep love of the Scottish Highlands was reflected in her taste for collie dogs, including Snowball, an unusual, shaggy white example of the breed, and ‘dear, good Sharp’ who she frequently mentioned in her journals, and who was photographed with The Queen in 1866 in a picture widely circulated as a carte de visite. In fact, Queen Victoria’s pride in her dogs is reflected in the number of photographs documenting them, the first taken by William Bambridge in 1854. 

Animal artists too, including Sir Edwin Landseer, Friedrich Keyl and Charles Burton Barber, were all kept busy with commissions to immortalise her favourite pets. Sharp appears in Landseer’s 1867 picture, ‘Queen Victoria at Osborne’ which depicts The Queen on her pony, Flora, accompanied by her ghillie, John Brown. Prince, a Skye terrier, sits up and begs in the picture, while in the background, The Queen’s daughters, Princess Louise and Princess Helena, sit with another terrier. Dogs, it seems, were never very far from the royal presence. Marco, a pomeranian, stands impudently on The Queen’s breakfast table at Windsor in an 1893 painting by Charles Burton Barber. The Queen had f irst brought four of these little Spitz-like dogs, including Marco, back from a trip to Italy in 1888. The breed soon became a favourite, triggering a craze for pomeranians during the late 19th century. 

Dogs were one subject on which Queen Victoria could find common ground with her offspring, in particular her son and heir, The Prince of Wales, who wrote to his mother on the subject in 1869 suggesting, “except a wife and children, no man could have a greater companion than a dog”. Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, even adopted a perky Jack Russell called Skippy from Battersea Dogs’ Home, a century-and-a-half before The Duchess of Cornwall did the same. Two years after becoming King, Edward VII closed his mother’s kennels at Windsor and moved all dogs to Sandringham in Norfolk, a decision which greatly pleased Queen Alexandra, who delighted in donning an apron to feed the dogs herself, often dragging along less enthusiastic visitors. Alexandra loved all dogs, but particularly bassett hounds, borzois, samoyeds, pekinese and tiny Japanese chins; the latter, a toy breed, proving loyal companions and lapdogs. 

When Togo, The Queen’s beloved Japanese chin died in 1914, Alexandra was bereft. She had the little dog laid on a cushion in her bedroom and for several days refused to allow his body to be moved until the smell became too much. The inscription on his tomb at Marlborough House reads: “My darling little Togo. Given to me by the Empress of Japan. My constant companion for 12 years. The Joy and Pleasure of my Life. Died May 25th 1914.” The King meanwhile, whose social life often revolved around shooting parties, introduced the heavy clumber spaniels to Sandringham, a dog also much admired and trusted by his son and fellow shooting enthusiast, George V. Edward VII was also renowned for terrier companions who, while loyal to their master, lacked basic manners with everyone else.

Jack, an Irish terrier, who arrived in 1901, was known to growl at anyone who came too close to his master and once chased the statesman Joseph Chamberlain down the main staircase at Buckingham Palace. Even more despicable was his successor, Caesar, a wire-haired fox terrier with an air of self-importance, who accompanied The King all over Europe, terrifying any other pets who crossed his path. He was, joked The King, one of the greatest obstacles to the entente cordiale, since he was prone to bark or snap at servants and statesmen alike. Both Caesar, and the clumber, Sandringham Lucy, were made into figures by Fabergé in 1907, uniting two of Edward and Alexandra’s joint passions – animals and their Fabergé collection. Caesar was immortalised again when he was carved, nestled at his master’s feet, on The King’s tomb at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. 

King George V owned a succession of terriers too. When he came to the throne, he had Happy who was followed by a Sealyham, Jack, who died aged 14 in 1928. After that, two cairns kept The King company in his old age. Princess Mary gave her father Snip, who died in 1931, and then there was Bob, a lively character, who outlived the King, and was looked after by Queen Mary who moved him with her to Marlborough House after her husband’s death. Edward VIII shared his father’s fondness for cairns and owned several throughout the 1930s, including Slipper, who he bought as a gift for Wallis Simpson in 1934. When he went abroad following the Abdication, he sent Slipper to Wallis at the Château de Candé, which, remembered Wallis in her memoirs, felt like, “David had sent part of himself”. Alas, the next day, while out walking on a golf course near the Château, Slipper was bitten by a snake and died that evening. “Now the principal guest at the wedding is no more,” Wallis tearfully wrote to Edward. 

Later, the Windsors would enjoy pugs to an almost cultish degree. They owned nine in total, including Impy, Trooper and the mischievously named Peter Townsend (after the love interest of Princess Margaret). They collected Meissen f igurines of the breed and the Duke even embroidered cushion covers with pugs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given her feelings about her brother-in-law and his wife, The Queen Mother fostered a lifelong abhorrence of the breed. At the centre of royal life, dogs have often been witness to history. The night before the Abdication, King Edward VIII retired to his study to write his broadcast speech in the company of his pekinese, Princess Pittie. Queen Victoria’s spaniel, Dash, was given a bath by his mistress after she had returned from her coronation in 1837, and more than 60 years later, on 22 January 1901, at Osborne, she requested that her pomeranian, Turi, lie by her side during her final hours – a dog-lover to the very end of her life. 

Top dogs with tails to tell 

LOOTY 

On 18 October 1860, during the Second Opium War, British troops occupying Peking (modern-day Beijing) looted and burned the Yuanmingyuan, the 18th-century summer palace of the Manchu emperors. Among the spoils of war was a pekinese bitch, found by Captain John Hart Dunne of the 99th Regiment, who brought her back to England and presented her to Queen Victoria. The diminutive dog (right) was named Looty, an unsettling reference to the method of her acquisition in an age of British imperialism. The breed was practically unknown in the UK and Looty was enough of a novelty to have her picture featured in the 15 June 1861 issue of The Illustrated London News. But Looty failed to capture Queen Victoria’s heart, and she spent most of her life in the royal kennels at Windsor.  

DASH 

Dash, a King Charles spaniel, was Queen Victoria’s companion through her girlhood and early reign, providing an antidote to her loneliness and isolation. Lord Melbourne thought Dash “a plebeian, ill-conditioned dog” but young Victoria doted on him. When Victoria first met her future husband, Prince Albert of SaxeCoburg in 1836, it was Dash who gave her suitor the canine seal of approval after Albert, “played with and fussed over” the dog. Dash is buried outside Adelaide Cottage, Windsor. His epitaph reads: “His Above: An Illustrated London News cover marking the death of Queen Alexandra, showing The Queen at Sandringham with one of her beloved dogs;  Below: Sir Edwin Landseer’s 1841 painting of Prince Albert’s greyhound Eos, used as the basis for John Francis’s monument to the dog after her death attachment was without selfishness; His playfulness was without malice; His fidelity without deceit.” 

EOS 

Queen Victoria already owned greyhounds when in 1840, her new husband, Prince Albert, brought his own to join the royal household. Eos was elegant and painted many times, but it was Edwin Landseer’s 1841 depiction of her, in a painting Victoria gave to her husband, that conveyed her character which was, according to Albert, “proud and contemptuous of other dogs”. When she died in 1844, Landseer’s portrait was used as the basis for a monument by the sculptor John Francis. Two bronzes were cast. One stands over the dog’s grave in Windsor Home Park; the other is on the Upper Terrace at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. 

CAESAR  

Edward VII’s characterful wirehaired fox terrier, who wore a collar stating “I am Caesar, The King’s dog”, was an unpopular nuisance with courtiers who had to tolerate his various mischiefs including a tendency to chew trousers while the owner was still wearing them. Caesar captured the nation’s hearts when he obediently followed the coffin in The King’s funeral procession on 20 May 1910. The well-known dog artist, Maud Earl, who had painted several pictures for the late King, was commissioned by The Illustrated London News to paint ‘Silent Sorrow’ (right) which shows Caesar mourning for his departed master. The picture was offered as a print to readers. 

ALEX 

Perhaps the most regal of royal dog breeds, the majestic borzoi was first introduced to the Royal Family in 1863 when the Russian Tsar gave several of the breed to Queen Victoria and the Princess of Wales. Queen Alexandra’s favourite borzoi, Alex, was a gift from her nephew, Tsar Nicholas II, in 1895, and was subsequently exhibited more than any other of her dogs, winning more than one hundred awards at shows. Alex’s majestic looks and celebrity status meant people would queue for hours in order to see the handsome hound. On the domestic front, The King personally clipped Alex’s coat and ordered that the silky fur was spun into wool. 

Queen Victoria and Animal Welfare 

Toy spaniels, often referred to as ‘comforters’, were in evidence at courts around Europe  from about the 16th century but the King Charles spaniel, as we recognise it today,  became a totem of the Stuart dynasty,  appearing in pictures by the court painter Van Dyck and mentioned by contemporary writers including Samuel Pepys, who thought King Charles II often cared more for his spaniels than his country. Known for a submissive temperament, spaniels were amenable and even sported the same flowing locks of the Stuart monarchs. When the Stuart dynasty was replaced in the Glorious Revolution, spaniels were ousted by the arrival of William of Orange, who favoured Dutch pugs. But by the mid-18th century, they were enjoying a renaissance and made appearances in portraits of George III and his family. In 1902, Edward VII over-ruled the Kennel Club and insisted the breed retain the royal name of King Charles spaniel. Around the time of her marriage in 1960, Princess Margaret owned Rowley, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. 

The rise and fall (and rise) of the royal spaniel 

Toy spaniels, often referred to as ‘comforters’, were in evidence at courts around Europe from about the 16th century but the King Charles spaniel, as we recognise it today, became a totem of the Stuart dynasty,  appearing in pictures by the court painter Van Dyck and mentioned by contemporary writers including Samuel Pepys, who thought King Charles II often cared more for his spaniels than his country. Known for a submissive temperament, spaniels were amenable and even sported the same flowing locks of the Stuart monarchs. When the Stuart dynasty was replaced in the Glorious Revolution, spaniels were ousted by the arrival of William of Orange, who favoured Dutch pugs. But by the mid-18th century, they were enjoying a renaissance and made appearances in portraits of George III and his family. In 1902, Edward VII over-ruled the Kennel Club and insisted the breed retain the royal name of King Charles spaniel. Around the time of her marriage in 1960, Princess Margaret owned Rowley, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel.