Pets are one of the great joys in life. Whether you have dogs, cats, birds, guinea pigs, or even snakes, the care we give to our animals and the love we receive in return makes it all worthwhile.  Even the British Royal Family enjoys its pets; as we know the late Queen Elizabeth II was particularly fond of her Corgis.  The royal obsession with pets, of course, goes back much further, and we’re going to explore the Royal Family’s history with their beloved animals from what we know in recorded history.

While it is entirely possible that monarchs before him had their beloved pets, we know for certain that King Charles II was particularly fond of Spaniels. Toy spaniels started appearing in the 16^th Century and were notably featured in paintings with Queen Mary I and Prince Philip of Spain.  However, King Charles II’s fondness for the animals resulted in them being named after him as the King Charles Cavalier Spaniel.  Samuel Pepys even wrote about His Majesty’s love of his dog, noting with some annoyance that Charles often spent more time in council meetings playing with his dog than paying attention to affairs of state.

Queen Victoria also had quite a number of dogs in her time of different species.  Like Charles, she had her own favorite pet spaniel named “Dash.” After Dash passed away and she married Prince Albert, the Prince Consort brought his own favorite pet from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a greyhound named “Eos”. After that, Queen Victoria became enamored of dachshunds after they first made their way to England from Germany, owning two named “Deckel” and “Waldman VI.”  She also loved collies (ultimately owning 88 of them) and had a favorite one that was photographed with her named “Sharp.”

Her son, King Edward VII, and his wife, Queen Alexandra, also had a number of pets during their reign.  Edward himself was partial to terriers and would often have them at court or in important meetings with him (just like King Charles II). The two most prominent were “Jack,” who died on a trip to Ireland, and “Caesar,” who famously walked behind his master’s coffin after Edward passed away.  Queen Alexandra, on the other hand, preferred borzois, a Russian hunting dog.  Her pet borzoi Vassilka was the first of its kind in England. Edward’s son, King George V, preferred collies like his grandmother and owned one named “Heather” but also had his share of terriers like his father, including “Happy,” “Jack,” “Snip,” and “Bob.”

If you were wondering where corgis come into play, the first person to own them in the Royal Family wasn’t Elizabeth, but her father, King George VI.  George introduced the family to the loveable loaves with “Dookie”, but also owned several others, including “Jane” who gave birth to “Crackers” and “Carol.” Queen Elizabeth II continued the family love of the dogs, though she and her sister, Princess Margaret, also notably owned a chameleon as a young girl.  Elizabeth’s love for the corgis would last the rest of her life and also led her to breed a corgi and dachshund mix known today as “dorgis”.  At the time of her death in 2022, her remaining dogs went to stay with her son, Prince Andrew, and his ex-wife, Sara Ferguson. 

And now we come to the current monarch, King Charles III. While Charles certainly grew up surrounded by his mother’s corgis and dorgis, in the 1970s he began to have his own fondness for Jack Russell terriers.  Charles also had a Labrador retriever named Harvey, who would often go hunting and fishing with the Prince of Wales, but his then-wife Princess Diana thought Harvey was “too smelly,” and so Charles rehomed him to an advisor.  Charles then kept two Jack Russells with the names “Tigga” and “Pooh,” who were supposedly named after the A.A. Milne characters by his sons Prince William and Prince Harry. Today, the King owns a pair of rescue Jack Russell terriers with Queen Consort Camilla named “Beth” and “Bluebell.”  Prince William and Princess Catherine also have their own fondness for dogs, so you can bet that tails will continue to wag in the halls of Buckingham Palace for many years to come.