Paw prints will continue to be found around Buckingham Palace, but this time they won’t belong to corgis. Instead they will be from Queen Camilla’s Jack Russells.
Beth, 11, and Bluebell, 10, will move into Buckingham Palace with their humans, a.k.a. King Charles and Queen Camilla, once renovations are complete. Until then, they will continue to live at Clarence House.
Queen Camilla adopted the dogs from the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in 2017. Her Majesty is the organization’s patron and on a recent visit there she urged people to adopt shelter animals and as she called it, “find a friend for life”, saying “you have all seen how easy it is to go there and come out with an animal, I’ve done it twice.”
It was on that same visit that Beth became a working royal dog. She helped her mom unveil a plaque at Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. Queen Camilla said that Beth and Bluebell, like all dogs, are also great listeners: “The nice thing about dogs is you can sit them down, you could have a nice long conversation, you could be cross, you could be sad, and they just sit looking at you, wagging their tail.”
Bluebell was found in the woods with no hair and Beth was tied to a post. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, Queen Camilla shared their rescue story: “Along I went to Battersea, and Beth appeared, and she had just been moved from pillar to post and dumped. We thought it would be nice for her to have a friend. They found [Bluebell] two or three weeks later, wandering about in woods, no hair on her, covered in sores, virtually dead. And they nursed her back to life and her hair grew again. She’s very sweet, but a tiny bit neurotic, shall we say.”
For the King and Queen, Beth and Bluebell are family as Her Majesty remarked: “They are family, friends and ever-faithful companions and, just like anyone else with a passion for dogs, I can’t imagine life without them.”
In an image released to mark the couple’s 15th wedding anniversary, the pooches showed off how photogenic they are sitting on their parents’ laps. More recently, Beth and Bluebell became cover dogs when they appeared on the cover of Country Life wearing their mom’s pearl necklaces.
Queen Elizabeth II’s corgis also have a new home. Speaking to People, Sarah, Duchess of York assured the public that Sandy and Muick have taken to their new home at the Royal Lodge, Windsor. That is the home she shares with Prince Andrew and their five Norfolk Terriers. Prince Andrew gifted his mother Muick during lockdown and Her Late Majesty got Sandy soon after. Queen Elizabeth II left the corgis to Prince Andrew and his former wife, which the duchess called “a big honour.”
