“I didn’t expect to be cooking for the Queen’s dogs, when I started working at Buckingham Palace. I thought I was going to be cooking for kings, queens and presidents. I did eventually, but one of the first jobs I had was cooking for the corgis – the Royal Corgis – making fresh food every day. [The corgis had] their own menu,” Darren McGrady, who worked as a chef for Buckingham Palace for 15 years, said in a video posted to YouTube this week.

The canines were treated like little royalty by Her Majesty.

“They sleep in like little wicker baskets in the corgi room and looked after by two footman called Doggie 1 and Doggie 2, that’s what they called them,” McGrady said.

On the elaborate menu was rabbit, chicken, liver, beef, cabbage and rice. “The most important part of the meat was everything had to be cut into a fine dice … to be sure there were no bones at all in the meat,” McGrady said. “Imagine if any of the dogs were to choke on the — I’d be in real trouble.”

After the food was prepared, Doggie 1 or Doggie 2 would deliver it to the Queen who would often feed the corgis herself.

McGrady explained that corgis had been in the royal family since 1933, and “The Queen was given a corgi for her 13th birthday and called it Susan and she’s had over 30 corgis since then.

“When I was at Buckingham Palace, the Queen had 12 corgis. Now she doesn’t have any — just two dorgis, a cross between a corgi and a dachshund and their names are Vulcan and Candy.”

But the long furry dogs were not beloved by everyone.

“William said corgis bark all the time and Harry said ‘I spent 33 years having those dogs bark at me,’” McGrady recalled.

The chef himself was terrified of the pack upon meeting them.

“The first time I met the Queen and the corgis I was at Balmoral castle by the river and I saw in the distance the Queen and the corgis and I got really excited. I thought this is going to be really cool. As she got closer, the dogs saw me and kept running toward me barking. I got really scared and turned around and ran away. The queen was laughing — she thought it was really funny.”

McGrady eventually settled in and learned to deal with the mischievous pack, recalling how at places like Sandringham, they would invade the kitchen.

“I remember being in Sandringham and putting a beef Wellington into the oven and didn’t see one of these corgis sniffing around for food. I stepped back and almost tripped over as I was putting the beef Wellington into the oven. In the royal kitchens it was like being a normal family, dogs running in and out of the kitchens all the time.”