Queen Elizabeth II's beloved pet Corgis became synonymous with her 70-year reign.
Her Late Majesty had an unbreakable bond with her canine companions, owning more than 30 Pembroke Welsh Corgis during her lifetime. Yet while the late monarch's everlasting love affair with the playful breed will forever be remembered as the Queen and her four-legged sidekicks, one writer has revealed the royal pooches were actually a "nightmare" to live with.
Craig Brown writes candidly about the chaos caused by the royal Corgis in his new rip-roaring biography, Q: A Voyage Around the Queen.
© Getty"Corgis are, it turns out, an unpredictable, temperamental bunch, one minute cuddly, the next psycho, the Corleones of the dog world," he writes. Brown tells the story of Dookie, the late Queen's first pet Corgi, who developed an unfavourable habit of nipping the heels of house guests.
"Dookie did not restrict his aggression to humans: he would happily attack the dining room chairs at Royal Lodge, the family home in Windsor Great Park," he adds.
According to Brown, Princess Anne was drafted in to discipline her late mother's riotous dogs, chosen for having a "soft spot" for the "biters".
© GettyFollowing the Queen's death in 2022, she was succeeded by her two remaining pups, Sandy and Muick, who have been inherited by Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.
These royal pups lead no ordinary canine lifestyle, having been raised on an ultra-indulgent diet of fresh beef, corn-fed chicken, lamb and rabbit prepared especially by the Queen's army of royal chefs.
The royal's four-legged friends even have their own menu, which royal chef Darren McGrady explained would be "chosen and sent to the kitchen every month by Mrs Fenncick, who took care of all the dogs at Sandringham."
© InstagramIt only seemed fit for the late monarch's son to take on corgis Muick and Sandy at Royal Lodge on the Windsor Estate. It was Prince Andrew and his daughters Eugenie and Beatrice who gifted the Queen with Sandy and Muick to distract her from the stress of Prince Philip being in hospital towards the end of his life.
Andrew and Sarah still live together, despite their 1996 divorce, and reside at the Grade II-listed residence, Royal Lodge.
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