Corgi 1920s flapper/Gatsby portrait: what the real history shows

Part 1

What a 1920s corgi portrait would get wrong

If you picture your dog at a Jazz Age party, it helps to know where the record actually starts. The royal family did not own a corgi until 1933, when the then Duke of York, later King George VI, brought home a Pembroke Welsh Corgi named Dookie for his daughters. Thelma Gray of Rozavel Kennels in Surrey brought a litter of puppies for the family to choose from, and Dookie was picked out of three. The family had already warmed to the breed earlier, after the two princesses fell for corgis owned by the children of the Marquess of Bath.

Part 2

When corgis actually became fashionable

The glamorous corgi story unfolds slowly across the 1930s and 1940s rather than arriving all at once. A few years after Dookie joined the family, a second corgi named Jane arrived as his companion. Then, on her eighteenth birthday, Princess Elizabeth received a corgi named Susan, who later accompanied her on her honeymoon in 1947. Susan became the matriarch of the corgi line that followed the Queen for the rest of her life.

• 1933: Dookie becomes the first royal corgi, a gift arranged for the Duke of York's daughters.
• 1936: Jane joins the household as a companion for Dookie.
• 1944: Susan arrives as an eighteenth-birthday gift for Princess Elizabeth and becomes the ancestor of the corgis that followed.

Part 3

How the royal connection built the corgi's image

So if part of you wants to imagine your dog as a dashing royal companion, that instinct is pointing at something real, it just belongs a decade or two later than the Jazz Age. Elizabeth went on to own more than thirty corgis over the course of her life. The dogs became part of her public image, appearing with her over the years and even in a sketch alongside James Bond during the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.

Part 4

The corgi breed itself

The breed behind this whole story is the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, the type Dookie and Jane both were. The Welsh Corgi now ranks among the more popular breeds in the United States, a rise that traces back through Susan's descendants.

Part 5

How to think about your own corgi's flapper or Gatsby-style portrait

None of this means you should skip the idea, it just helps to frame it honestly. Think of the portrait as playful fiction rather than a historical reenactment, the same way a smartphone would look funny dropped into a novel set a century earlier.