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They were her truest friends right up until the end.
As one of the UK's most famous animal lovers, Queen Elizabeth's relationship with her Corgis was probably the least complicated. They loved her, and she loved them back. Now that she has died at age 96 on Thursday, there is a question about who will take care of her four dogs.
The queen was always very kind to animals. When her dog Whisper died in 2018, she was said to have told her horse trainer friend Monty Roberts that she wasn't going to get another dog because "she didn't want to leave any young dog behind."
But in 2021, when there was a pandemic and it was clear that her husband, Prince Philip, was dying, she bought two new puppies to keep her company: Corgi Muick (named after her favorite Scottish lake) and Dorgi Fergus (named after her war hero uncle Fergus Bowes-Lyon).
A Dorgi is a cross between a Corgi and a dachshund. The queen has had several of them, including an older one named Candy, which was born when one of her Corgis mated with her sister Princess Margaret's dachshund.
Fergus died, which was sad. But a few months later, on what would have been Philip's 100th birthday, her son Prince Andrew gave her a Cocker Spaniel puppy. The owner of the dog who won a prize named her Lissy.
When the queen was 7 years old, a family friend showed her a Corgi. Since then, she has loved them. At age 18, she got her first Corgi named Susan. Her Majesty loved the dog so much that she hid it under a rug in the royal carriage when she went on her honeymoon in 1947.
Over the next 60 years, she would own more than 30 descendants of Susan and give others as gifts to family and friends. Queen Elizabeth used to walk them twice a day until it became too hard for her. The dogs even had their own room at Buckingham Palace called "The Corgi room." Two footmen named "Doggie 1" and "Doggie 2" took care of them.
The royal author Claudia Joseph told The Post, "The whole family loves dogs, so any of them could take a dog or two." "Andrew has Cocker Spaniels, so he could take back the one he gave her. William and Kate also like dogs, so they could have them. Or, the palace staff might continue to take care of them so that they don't have to be moved."
Not only does the queen leave behind her dogs, but she also leaves behind more than 100 horses. Two of these horses were gifts for her platinum jubilee, one from French President Emmanuel Macron and the other from Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
King George VI, Queen Elizabeth's late father, was interested in breeding and racing thoroughbreds. It is thought that she has won around $9 million in prize money over the years. At each of her royal homes, she has a stable.
She kept a close eye on all of her horses, and the daily Racing Post was her favorite thing to read.
"Princess Anne, the queen's daughter, and Zara, Anne's daughter, are both well-known horse lovers and Olympic equestrians, so they are likely to be involved in what happens next to the queen's animals," said Joseph.
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