Prince Andrew has been accused of kicking his Labrador in the head during a pheasant shoot at Sandringham before allegedly telling a shocked guest to 'f*** off' when challenged over the incident, according to claims in a forthcoming book by royal biographer Andrew Lownie.
The allegation appears in Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, Lownie's yet‑to‑be‑published examination of Prince Andrew and his siblings. The reported episode is said to have taken place at the late queen's Norfolk estate during a mid-morning break in a shoot and has not been independently verified. Buckingham Palace and representatives of Prince Andrew were approached for comment in the original report, but no response was noted. Nothing is confirmed at this stage, and the claims should be treated with caution.
Allegation Emerges in New Royal Book
In the book, serialised in advance, Lownie writes that a guest of the royal family joined Prince Andrew at Sandringham for a pheasant shoot and later recounted the alleged dog-kicking incident. The group had paused for hot soup and sausage rolls when the prince's Labrador, standing by his side, reportedly jumped up and snatched a sausage roll from the visitor's hand.
The guest laughed, according to Lownie's account. It was then, the biographer claims, that Prince Andrew reacted by kicking the dog in the head, leaving her 'whimpering on the ground.' The language is stark, and if even broadly accurate, sits awkwardly with the carefully managed country-squire image often projected around royal shooting parties.
The unnamed guest is said to have confronted Andrew immediately, telling him: 'That is the most disgusting thing that you have just done to your beautiful dog. You should be ashamed of yourself!' The rebuke, if true, would have cut straight across the usual deference that tends to cloak royal encounters.
Lownie alleges that the prince did not back down. Instead, Andrew is quoted as snapping back: 'F*** off. It is none of your business and I will do precisely what I want to my dogs.' Again, none of this has been independently corroborated, and the words remain the author's reported version of events rather than established fact.
The biographer goes on to say that over Prince Andrew's shoulder, the guest noticed several other members of the shooting party giving him thumbs-up in apparent support of his intervention. It is a small detail, but one that suggests Andrew's behaviour, as portrayed here, may not have landed well even within a sympathetic audience.
Later that evening the book claims Prince Philip approached the guest to praise his stance. According to Lownie's account, the late Duke of Edinburgh told him, 'What you said to my son today was absolutely right and Her Majesty and I fully agree with what you said. Andrew needs a good scolding from time to time.' The quote, if accurate, would amount to unusually direct criticism from father to son relayed via a near stranger.
Again, there has been no independent confirmation of the exchange with Prince Philip; it exists solely within Lownie's narrative at this point and must be read with that caveat firmly in mind.
Security Fears and Prince Under Pressure
The resurfacing of questions over Andrew's judgement comes as the 64-year-old is already under scrutiny on another front, his personal security. The development in Lownie's book follows reports that Andrew is pleading for the restoration of taxpayer-funded protection after an alleged confrontation near his new home on the Sandringham Estate.
The former Duke of York, who stepped back from royal duties after the furore over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, was said to have been walking his dogs when a man in a balaclava allegedly approached him on Wednesday evening. According to police, officers later arrested 39-year-old Alex Jenkinson and charged him with two counts of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to harass or cause alarm or distress.
Jenkinson was also charged with failing to provide a specimen of blood while in custody. He has not yet entered a plea to the charges, and the circumstances leading up to the alleged confrontation remain only partially described in public.
Andrew was reportedly left shaken but uninjured by the encounter. Those close to him, speaking previously to UK media, have suggested he now wants his full security detail reinstated at public expense. His protection was scaled back after he ceased to be a working royal, a decision that has never sat comfortably with Andrew, who is said to view himself as a continuing target because of his notoriety.
For a man who once styled himself as the monarchy's swaggering problem-solver, these two strands, the Sandringham scare and the disputed Labrador-kicking allegation, underline how constrained Andrew's world has become. Even a walk with his dogs or a decades-old shooting story revived in print now feeds into a wider, unsettled question about what role, if any, he has left.
Nothing in Lownie's account has yet been tested in court or subjected to an official inquiry and the palace has so far chosen silence. Until or unless those involved go on the record, the claims remain allegations in a book about a prince whose public standing was already on the floor.
