Queen Elizabeth II was so attached to corgi puppies that you could buy stuffed toys in the shape of her dogs in the Royal Palace shops.

Most recently, she is believed to have had about four or five dogs: two corgis named Muick and Sandy, a dorgi named Candy and two cocker spaniels. During her reign, there are thought to have been around 30 corgis.

But what will happen to the dogs now that she is no longer around to care for them?

"I think the dogs will be taken care of by the family, maybe [by her son] Andrew because he gave them to her," royal biographer Ingrid Seward speculated to Newsweek.

But royal author Penny Junor has another theory: "The care of the dogs has sometimes been entrusted to staff, but mainly to the Queen's seamstress, assistant and trusted right-hand man, Angela Kelly; and her longtime confidant, Paul Whybrew, of who was once seen with the Queen and her dogs.

When corgi Willow died in 2018, the British press reported that the Queen was heartbroken and decided not to breed any more dogs. But at some point during her late husband Prince Philip's illness, she appeared to have a change of heart. According to the BBC, the royal family had a term for the calming effect corgi dogs had on the queen over the years: "the dog mechanism."

"If the going gets tough, she sometimes leaves and takes the dogs for a walk," wrote Penny Junor, author of All the Queen's Corgis.