From Queen Victoria’s beloved King Charles Spaniel, Dash, to Queen Elizabeth’s famed love of corgis, dogs have played a central role in the lives of the British royal family for generations. And now, Prince William, Kate and their children have suddenly found themselves with four new pet dogs after their cocker spaniel Orla gave birth to puppies.
Orla is understood to have given birth recently, and a source told The Sun newspaper that “Mother and babies are doing well.”
The newspaper reported that the royal children have already fallen in love with the weeks-old pets. However, it is not known if the family plan to keep them long-term. There is no information about who the father of the pups is.
Prince William and Kate Middleton posted a picture of Orla on social media just last month to celebrate the “joy, companionship and love” pets bring to our lives on National Pet Day. Orla was also part of the family video that Kate made to announce she had finished chemotherapy last September.
While Queen Elizabeth was famed for having multiple corgis and dorgis snapping at her heels, four more dogs would mark a big change for William and Kate as Orla was only their second pet dog together. Their first, a male cocker spaniel called Lupo, was a gift from Kate’s brother, James, as a belated wedding present after they married in 2011. When it became public knowledge at the start of 2012 that the royal couple had a new dog, Palace aides declined to disclose the pet’s name, saying that it was “private.”
However, Lupo’s name was eventually confirmed by the Palace after Kate told school children at a public engagement in Oxford what they had called him.
Lupo subsequently featured in several key family photographs, including the first official picture of baby Prince George taken by Kate’s father in the Middletons’ back garden in 2013. In 2016, he was photographed being fed an ice cream by Prince George to mark the Prince’s third birthday. When Lupo died in 2020, the Prince and Princess of Wales posted a rare personal message on social media describing Lupo as having been at “the heart of our family for the past nine years.” “We will miss him so much,” they wrote.
The fact that William and Kate had another dog was revealed in early 2021. However, Orla’s name was not made public until more than a year later, in May 2022, when she appeared in official pictures for Princess Charlotte’s seventh birthday. Orla was also in the Princess’s eighth birthday pictures a year later.
Royal dogs have been in the spotlight recently thanks to the King and Queen’s visit to the Chelsea Flower Show where they visited the RHS and BBC Radio 2 Dog Garden, which had the names of their pet dogs inscribed into the path. Ahead of the visit, Buckingham Palace released a new image of Queen Camilla and her latest rescue dog Moley.
Town & Country Contributing Editor Victoria Murphy has reported on the British Royal Family since 2010. She has interviewed Prince Harry and has travelled the world covering several royal tours. She is a frequent contributor to Good Morning America. Victoria authored Town & Country book The Queen: A Life in Pictures, released in 2021.
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