The Queen Is Done Collecting Corgis, Wants No Corgi Left Behind

Seems like rumors earlier this year are true—famed corgi enthusiast Queen Elizabeth is pretty much done accumulating corgis. According to one insider, the 89-year-old monarch doesn’t want to leave behind a bunch of young dogs when she dies. LIZZIE, NO.

That’s according to Time, plucking a detail from Vanity Fair’s exhaustive piece on the Queen’s lifelong involvement with the breed. But now she’s down to two of the critters—Holly and Willow, who’re twelve, around the typical lifespan for a corgi. And palace spokespeople won’t say anything official, but Monty Roberts—who’s advised the Queen on horses and corgis alike—says she’s wrapped things up. He recounted a convo they had three years ago:

“I said, ‘I want you to tell me the best breeder of corgis that you revere. Who’s doing the best job? Because I want a puppy to be named Monty, to be a replacement.’ But she didn’t want to have any more young dogs. She didn’t want to leave any young dog behind. She wanted to put an end to it. I understood that we would discuss it further at a later date.

“Well, we never discussed it at a later date, and I have no right to try to force her into continuing to bring on young puppies if she doesn’t want to. That isn’t my right. But it still concerns me. Because I want her to believe in her existence until she’s no longer here, because she’s just too important to the world to contemplate checking out. For me, the Queen can’t die.”

But don’t lose it, because as a chaser, here’s the best visual image ever:

Her first cousin Lady Margaret Rhodes says that the Queen loves to take long walks on the heath in Scotland with the corgis. “They’re often rather unruly, the dogs. They chase rabbits like mad,” Rhodes says. “There are a lot of rabbits around Balmoral, certainly, and the Queen gets excited with the dogs chasing the rabbits, egging them on. Telling them to keep going—’Keep on going!’ ” For this last phrase, the 90-year-old raises her voice to imitate a holler.