Corgis get a tarmac path – because gravel hurt paws
THE Queen ordered a gravel path to be tarmacked over to protect the feet of her beloved corgis.
The dog- l o vi ng Monarch noticed her beloved pets were returning from walks at Buckingham Palace with splinters of stone trapped in their paws.
To solve the problem, she had a smooth path created from the door of her private apartments to the garden.
‘ When Her Majesty had a number of dogs, they would all be walked in a gaggle by either her or her footmen out to the gardens to be exercised,’ a former Royal staff member told The Mail on Sunday. ‘This would happen a couple of times a day, but the gravel surrounding the palace would sometimes get caught in their paws and cause discomfort.
‘So when Her Majesty found out, she asked the groundsmen if a path could be created specially for the dogs to be walked on. It did cause some amusement among the staff – no expense spared for the Royal dogs.’
The Queen has owned more than 30 dogs since she received the first, Dookie, as a gift from her father King George VI in 1933. She once said: ‘My corgis are family.’
She later bred dorgis – a cross between a Pembroke Welsh corgi and a dachshund– but now has only one dog, Candy, following the death of another called Vulcan last month.
Former Royal chef Darren McGrady has revealed that he would prepare a special menu of fresh food for the corgis which slept in wicker baskets and were looked after by two footmen, whom palace staff nicknamed Doggy 1 and Doggy 2. The 94-year-old decided to stop breeding dogs two years ago because she worried about who would look after them when she was no longer able to.
Monty Roberts, the Californian cowboy who has been an informal adviser to the Queen said: ‘She didn’t want any more young dogs. She didn’t want to leave any young dog behind. She wanted to put an end to it.’
Her last corgi, Whisper, died in 2018, but perhaps her most famous was Monty, named after Mr Roberts, who appeared in her 2012 Olympics film with Daniel Craig as James Bond.
Monty died only weeks after filming.