A History of Queen Elizabeth’s Lifelong Corgi Appreciation

On March 13, Queen Elizabeth sat in the back seat of her Bentley and drove away from Buckingham Palace as the coronavirus pandemic descended upon London. Due to her advanced age—the monarch turned 94 on April 21—she was heading to Windsor Castle a week before her traditional spring residence began. She did not know yet when she would return.

Cameras snapped as she pulled away. Almost instantly, those images were uploaded for the world to see. Despite the somber mood, they elicited an instant chuckle: sitting on her lap was one very alert dorgi (dachshund-corgi), Candy.

Throughout her entire life and reign, dorgis and corgis have been constant canine companions to Queen Elizabeth. Over time, they’ve become symbolic of the monarch: They nipped at her heels in a skit for the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, posed with her on the cover of Vanity Fair, and frolicked with her on expansive palace lawns and castle grounds. Back in March, the queen shared a photograph of herself on the telephone from Windsor Castle, talking to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Sitting on her desk? Bronze corgi figurines.

But let’s go back to the beginning: Before she was Queen, she was a young Princess Elizabeth, surrounded by dogs. “The children live surrounded with their own and their parents’ many dogs, which include labradors, and even a Tibetan breed,” wrote Kathleen Woodward in a 1937 issue of the Sunday Times. “Both children have their own dogs, and are taught to look after their feeding and grooming. Princess Elizabeth has a Welsh corgi, from which she is seldom parted.” Although Woodward did not name the pup, it is assumed to be one named Dookie, brought home by her father, the Duke of York, in 1933. It would be the first of over 30 corgis the queen has owned during her lifetime. Woodward got it right when she said “seldom parted”: In 1935, photographers captured the little princess, not yet the heir presumptive, walking Dookie (or perhaps the other family corgi, Jane) in Hyde Park. Two years later, she stood on the Buckingham Palace balcony for Trooping the Colour, her first as the first in line to the British throne. In her 11-year-old arms she held her corgi.

On her 18th birthday, she was given a special present: a corgi puppy named Susan. For the next decade, the two were inseparable. Susan even joined the queen and Prince Philip on their honeymoon in 1947. The Manchester Guardian captured this scene as the newlyweds boarded the train to the Broadlands, Philip’s uncle’s estate: “The ginger-colored corgi jumped out before the royal couple and was taken by Palace attendants into the train.”

While they were at Broadlands, Prince Philip would take his bride on Jeep drives through the grounds. “The only other occupant was Princess Elizabeth’s pet corgi,” wrote the Daily Telegraph.

Susan was the start of what would become a dog dynasty. Queen Elizabeth bred her pet, and since then every corgi or dorgi she’s owned can be traced back to Susan—thus far, there have been more than 10 generations. When Susan died in 1959, she was buried in a pet cemetery in Sandringham.