King Charles and Queen Camilla might not be corgi aficionados like Queen Elizabeth, but they’re the proud owners of two rescue dogs, Moley and Bluebell, and a Lagotto Romagnolo named Snuff. King Charles has always been a dog person, having previously owned a Jack Russell terrier, Tigga, who died at the age of 18. But it turns out there’s one pet that he “cannot bear” to be around.
"Princess Margaret gave him a kitten as a present when he was a child and he disliked it on sight,” royal author Brian Hoey wrote in his book Pets By Royal Appointment. “Since then, he has developed an aversion to everything feline and says he cannot even stand having one in the same room.”
Per Hello! magazine, The King’s hatred of cats is so strong that he “can detect whether one lives in a house, even if it's absent at the time.”
Since Queen Elizabeth was such a dog lover, it's no surprise that the rest of her family followed suit. All of her children have dogs, including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who went on to take care of the late Queen's corgis after her death. Prince William and Prince Harry also own multiple dogs, but when it comes to cats, there's only only one member of the family who’s known to be a feline enthusiast.
Princess Michael of Kent, who is married to the late Queen’s first cousin, Prince Michael of Kent, loves Siamese and Burmese cats in particular.
Former Royal Butler Paul Burrell once revealed that the princess’s cats used to play outside Kensington Palace, causing a young Prince William and Prince Harry to treat them as “moving targets as they walked along the top of the wall.”
The boys had received BB guns for Christmas and “thought it was great fun” to aim at the cats, but after Princess Diana found out what her sons were doing, she “stopped it immediately.”
“I don’t imagine Princess Michael found it quite so amusing,” Burrell said—but perhaps The King wouldn’t have minded as much.
