Throughout her long reign the Queen was known the world over for one particular passion - her love of corgis. She owned her first of the dogs as a teenager and went on to keep many throughout her lifetime, even travelling with them on official royal tours.
So it was especially fitting that her corgis should play a special role in the late monarch's funeral today (Monday, September 19). Her cherished dogs - and one of her favourite ever horses - made a poignant appearance at Windsor during the procession.
The young dogs Muick and Sandy – one on a red lead and one on a blue lead – were brought out into the quadrangle by two pages in red tailcoats for the arrival of the Queen’s coffin. Emma, the Queen’s Fell Pony, had greeted the procession, standing on grass in a gap in the floral tributes along the Long Walk in honour of her late owner.
In early 2021, she was given two new puppies, one dorgi and one corgi, as a gift by her son Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, while staying at Windsor during lockdown. The puppies kept the monarch entertained while the Duke of Edinburgh was in hospital and Buckingham Palace and the royals were dealing with the bitter fallout from Megxit and the Sussexes’ Oprah interview.
The Queen named the dorgi Fergus after her uncle who was killed in action during the First World War, and the corgi Muick, pronounced Mick, after Loch Muick on the Balmoral estate. But the monarch was devastated when five-month-old Fergus died just weeks later, in the aftermath of Philip’s death.
He was later replaced with a new corgi puppy, from Andrew and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie for her official 95th birthday, who the Queen named Sandy. Last week it was confirmed that Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York, will look after the Queen’s beloved corgis following her death.
A spokeswoman for Andrew said he and Sarah will take on Muick and Sandy. Most of the Queen’s corgis were descended from her first corgi, Susan, who was gifted to her on her 18th birthday in 1944.
