Somehow, Meghan Markle Has Gotten Wrapped Up in Some Very Niche Dog Drama
All the attention may be on Markle’s beagle, but the royal canine community definitely hasn’t forgotten about her other dog, Bogart.
Sure, the royal wedding was about as romantic of a spectacle you can get, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any drawbacks to becoming the Duchess of Sussex. For Meghan Markle, becoming part of the royal family has also meant she’s had to make a few sacrifices—leaving behind not only her career in acting, but also one of her one of the two “loves” she’s said “mean[s] the absolute world” to her: her rescue Labrador-shepherd mix, who’s named Bogart.
As for the other one of the two “loves” in Markle’s life, she actually wasn’t referring to her husband, Prince Harry, but her other rescue dog: Guy, a beagle who has in fact lived in two different countries before adding a third to his roster now that he’s moved into Kensington Palace. Before he was making headlines for hitching a pre-wedding ride with the Queen—a heartwarming but not exactly true story, but we’ll get to that later—Guy was living alone in the woods of Kentucky, and then a kill shelter. A few days before he was set to be euthanized, though, the ultimate saviors—a group of charitable Canadians—stepped in, kicking off Guy’s newfound lifestyle of getting the royal treatment.
The original photo that the nonprofit A Dog’s Dream Rescue in Ontario, Canada, received of the beagle whom Meghan Markle would eventually adopt, taken in January 2015.
Upon hearing of his situation, the nonprofit A Dog’s Dream Rescue in Ontario, Canada, found a “group of dog lovers” willing to take one-hour turns driving the pup all the way up to Toronto. Before long, Markle met him at “a normal run-of-the-mill adoption event.” (As A Dog’s Dream Rescue later put it: “How is that for a rags to riches story from a good ole Kentucky beagle!”)
Meghan Markle’s two rescue dogs, Bogart and Guy.
The same can actually be said for the much less high-profile Bogart, when you consider that it wasn’t Markle, who didn’t have too high of a profile as an actress at that point, but none other than Ellen DeGeneres who was actually really the one behind his adoption. While at an apparently quite happening dog shelter, Markle casually ran into DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi. Though at that point, she wasn’t acquainted with either of them, DeGeneres told Markle that she “had to rescue” Bogart, whom she’d been eyeing, going as far as tapping on the window right before she’d left to make sure Markle would follow through.(“It’s sort of like if Oprah tells you to do something,” she later said. “I’m sitting there holding him and she’s like, ‘Have you thought of a name for him yet?’ And I said, ‘Well, I think I’d name him Bogart,’ and she’s like, ‘You’re taking the dog home.'”)
Now, if there’s anything we’ve learned from the whole saga that was Lena Dunham and her dog Lamby—which prove that even feuds with Brooklyn dog shelters can dominate the news—it’s that behind every adorable, ultraliked Instagram of a celebrity pet, things can actually be much more complicated than they seem. The fact that that the widely circulated, adorable story that dog-lover Queen Elizabeth II rode to the wedding with her new buddy, Guy, for example, wasn’t exactly true in the end—though there’s no denying that the Queen and Markle have certainly been bonding over their love of pups. By the time Prince Harry and Markle announced their engagement in November, the latter had already met the Queen a couple of times—which, of course, also meant that she’d met her famous pack of corgis and dorgis, who, according to Prince Harry, took to her “straight away.” (“I’ve spent the last 33 years being barked at. This one walks in, absolutely nothing…” he said, adding that they wagged their tails and laid at her feet the whole time.)
Now that the last of the Queen’s corgis has died, marking the end of an eight-decade era, it’s up to Guy to carry on the royal tradition—hopefully without some of the attack incidents that both the Queen and Princess Anne‘s hounds have gotten involved in in the past. Still, things haven’t been going entirely smoothly; given that the royal canine community went as far to intensely scrutinize the size of the ears of the dog who rode with the Queen to see if they matched up with the size of Guy’s, it’s not exactly surprising that they’ve found another bone to pick—not with Guy, but with Bogart, even though he’s all the way back in Toronto. A quick look at the comments being left on the Facebook page of even the benevolently run A Dog’s Dream Rescue in particular shows just how vicious some are getting toward Markle—and even towards the Prince, digging up photos of his infamous swastika incident:
She is leaving her other dog behind. Awful!!!!!?
She dumped one and took the beagle thereby abandonding [sic] Bogart AND separating two best friends. No doubt Guy will spend more time with whoever she hires to babysit him in England but won’t ever see his friend again. Personally I wouldn’t even allow to to [sic] adopt a pet rock.
Leaving one behind …I would love to know the reason…..it is disgusting in my eyes….poor pup lost his mom and best friend
Of course, there are also plenty defending her decision to leave Bogart behind, repeatedly pointing out that her vet reportedly advised her that Bogart’s age meant he wasn’t up for the move and that staying in Toronto would definitely be best for him. Indeed, it’s practically making for a war between the former camp and the latter, many of whose comments read like this one: “Her second dog is older and has health issues serious enough that travel and quarantine would be risky. She left him with very good friends that often cared for him whenever she was away for work.” (Plus, she might be able to see him again soon if the rumors of a royal honeymoon in Canada turn out to be true.)
Realistically, it was only a matter of time before Markle would find herself in the midst of some drama, which is thankfully much less dramatic than that of pretty much every other member of her family. Still, no matter where you stand when it comes to Bogart, it definitely seems to be true that Markle has made sure Guy is living the life. And, by the way, she’s not the first American-turned-royal to do so: Decades earlier, Grace Kelly made a similar—though much more extravagant—move when it was her time to move across the seas to become a royal. When she relocated from Hollywood to Monaco, she brought along not only 80 pieces of luggage, but also her Weimaraner, her Great Dane, and her poodle, the latter of whom also had a celebrity origin story, as it was given to her by Cary Grant.
Grace Kelly and her Great Dane on the studio lot between shooting sessions in 1955.
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Roll Over, Choupette: In Fashion, Every Day is Now National Dog Day
There’s no ignoring the somehow still ongoing saga of Lena Dunham’s former dog Lamby, but now that the mutt has reportedly found quite a comfortable new home, we can properly admire the two much younger pups, toy poodles Susan and Karen, that Dunham has lately been keeping company with. (Along with the collie Penny Parker Simmons-Dunham that her mom, the artist Laurie Simmons, has also recently welcomed to the family.)
Once upon a time, it was Marc Jacobs who would occasionally deign to post his dog Neville on his account; now that the bull terrier has a book and more than 200,000 followers to himself, though, it’s the designer who’s lucky to make a cameo on @nevillejacobs.
Bear River and Leonardo Moon, the Australian Labradoodles owned by the photographer couple Inez and Vinoodh, have not only made a name for themselves with their legendary pet names, but by modeling with Gisele in their spare time.
Once simply the proud owner French bulldog Asia, and then the French bulldog Koji, Lady Gaga also recently welcomed a new pup to the so-called “Joanne family.”
The model Miranda Kerr always seems to have dogs on her account—and not just because she just married Snapchat’s CEO and is never one to shy from the puppy filter.
Even before she had her daughter Luna, Chrissy Teigen had quite the family with John Legend, including Puddy, Pippa, and Penny, the latter of which is a three-legged rescue. Luckily, it looks like the fam’s all getting along swimmingly.
Paris Hilton ultimately wants to have 20 dogs, but at the moment she owns five—Harajuku Bitch, Diamond Baby, Princess Paris Jr., Prince, and Prince Baby Bear—who reside in a two-story replica of her own mansion, and who have not only have their own Twitter account, but an action-packed Instagram with more than 100,000 followers.
Forget Thom Browne: Ever since the designer turned his pet Hector into a handbag, the dog’s become a personality strong enough to stand on his own—or in the hands of the critic Cathy Horyn. He even has his own Instagram account.
Miley Cyrus may have recently entered a new phase of her life, but there’s one aspect of her old one she’s definitely not giving up: her dogs.
Edward Enninful may have recently received an OBE, but that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to tote his Boston terrier Ru along on the red carpet, or stay up to date with the pup’s own Instagram.
She may occasionally refer to him as the “Hound of Hell” on Instagram, but the model and activist Adwoa Aboah clearly cherishes Blue—they’ve even been to Tulum together.
In between grams of supermodels decked out in his designs, designer Isaac Mizrahi also takes care to share snapshots of his dog Dean—a star in his own right, at least to Mizrahi, who considers him to be Ben Affleck’s doppelgänger. “Dean is a dog of a certain age and I think Mr. Affleck is a certain age and I think they are weighing in beautifully,” Mizrahi remarked this summer, standing by the newfound bachelor.
Last summer, the designer (and Lady Gaga stylist) Brandon Maxwell celebrated becoming a finalist for the LVMH prize, winning the Swarovski Prize for womenswear at the CFDA Awards, and officially counting Michelle Obama among his many celebrity fans; this summer, he celebrated the fifth birthday of his beloved pup Stella, who even made it into his Christmas photo.
As the designer Joseph Altuzarra gears up to show in Paris rather than New York this season, he’s also of course been hanging with Bean, his miniature schnauzer that he’s been known to take all the way to Staten Island for her haircuts.
Designer Rachel Antonoff is not afraid to declare her pup Lafitte, whom she found at a kill shelter in Los Angeles, as dear of a family member to her as her brother, the mega-producer Jack Antonoff. (Thanks to her involvement with the no-kill shelter Social Tees, there’s usually a good variety of other pups featured in between the fashion on her account, too.)
