The Queen's corgis are back in the news after attacking Princess Beatrice's terrier in Balmoral. The corgis are currently at the height of their fame following an appearance in a film to open the Olympics, in which they were filmed matching strides with James Bond aka Daniel Craig in the film shown at the opening ceremony
Although stand-in corgis were used for the film in the shots where the helicopter takes off, during the segment of the short where Bond met QE2 in the ‘audience room’ the Queen’s own corgis were used. It was also the Queen’s real corgis – Monty, Susan and Willow - who were used when Bond and the Queen were filmed walking together down the palace hallways.
An insider involved in the shoot tells the Daily Beast that in fact the Queen’s corgis, often reviled for being badly behaved creatures, actually performed their roles better than the stand-ins, enabling the sequence to be shot in one take: “The Queens corgis behaved impeccably,” says the source, “The stand-ins were more tricky.”