Inside Queen Elizabeth’s corgi obession: meet Susan, the royal’s first and favourite dog she snuck on her honeymoon in Scotland with Prince Philip, upholding her legacy by breeding her puppies
- Susan was gifted to the then-princess by King George on her 18th birthday and stuck by her side for 15 years – all but two of the queen’s corgis descended from her
- Over the decades, the dog-loving queen owned and bred over 30 corgis; her last two corgis, Muick and Sandy, even attended her funeral at Windsor Castle
Queen Elizabeth’s last corgis, Muick and Sandy, showed up to pay their respects at her funeral committal ceremony in Windsor.
The moving images of the dogs – together with photographs of Emma, the late monarch’s last pony – struck a chord with mourners across the world. Corgis had been a signature of the queen for more than seven decades.
She doted on the short-legged pets, including the dogs that her footmen brought to see her committal ceremony at Windsor Castle on Monday, September 19.
But how did the queen’s love affair with the adorable pups first begin? Meet her first corgi ever, Susan …
Queen Elizabeth was given her first and favourite corgi on her 18th birthday
Muick and Sandy were relative newcomers to the royal household. They were given to the queen as puppies to keep her company during the Covid-19 pandemic, and they offered comfort when her husband, Prince Philip, died last year at the age of 99.
But Sandy and Muick – the latter is named after one of the sovereign’s favourite lochs on her Scottish estate, Balmoral – represented a break from tradition. Neither of them descended from the queen’s first dog, a Pembroke Welsh corgi known as Susan.
The young Elizabeth was so enamoured by Susan, whom she received in 1944 as an 18th birthday present from her father, George VI, that she bred her. She wanted Susan’s legacy to be preserved through her puppies.
