How the Queen inspired a phenomenon of corgi fans
The Queen pictured with Susan at Balmoral Castle, in 1952 - the year she became QueenSusan showed up on her 18th birthday, and would gatecrash her honeymoon a few years later, smuggled beneath a rug in the royal carriage after her wedding to Prince Philip.
Over the next six decades, she would own more than 30 of Susan's descendants, single-handedly create a mass market for this stunted Welsh cattle dog, and accidentally invent the dorgi with the help of Princess Margaret's amorous dachshund, Pipkin. Dookie was horribly behaved, biting courtiers and visitors with abandon - but that didn't stop a press photo of Elizabeth and the tiny tyrant charming the public and raising the Pembroke corgi's profile.Princess Elizabeth pictured at Glamis Station with Dookie just after he joined the family
"People - breeders - were servicing the market for a dog that has suddenly become very popular. It's the 101 Dalmatians effect," notes Ciara Farrell, the Kennel Club's Library and Collections Manager. While her husband Prince Philip spent a lifetime walking a little behind his wife, the corgis scamper ahead - revelling in a freedom denied to the Queen herself. Princess Diana is said to have coined the phrase "a moving carpet" to describe the jumble of dogs that preceded her. But the Queen herself calls them "the girls" and "the boys". In all her years of breeding, she has never sold any of her puppies.
She writes: "Dogs and horses are her passion and it is with them, and the people who share that passion, that she truly relaxes. Horses are a rich man's game but dogs are not. They are a great leveller, they attract people from all walks of life and, over the years, the Queen has had strong and genuine friendships with many of her fellow dog enthusiasts."
The Queen sensed something was wrong and said, "Well, shall I help you?" before calling for her corgis, Dr Nott said. They've varied in appearance, with some ears pointing up, corgi-like, and others hanging down. But all of them had long tails and were smaller than pedigree corgis. Her Majesty is now 96 years old, meaning there are millions of people old enough to own dogs who have only ever seen her as a grey-haired grandmother and great-grandmother.Their ascendency peaked in the 1960s with almost 9,000 puppy registrations, as the public cooed over pictures of the Queen with her young family and dogs. But from the late 1990s in particular the decline is marked, and 2014 was their annus horribilis.
Social media has also been vital to the corgi renaissance, as Chris Equale, owner of TikTok stars Hammy and Olivia, knows well.
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