Fact Check

Did Meghan Markle's Dog Accompany Queen Elizabeth to the Royal Wedding?

Despite rumors, the queen did not escort Meghan Markle's rescued beagle Guy to the royal wedding.

Published May 22, 2018

 (Shaun Jeffers / Shutterstock.com)
Image Via Shaun Jeffers / Shutterstock.com
Claim:
A video shows Queen Elizabeth riding with Meghan Markle's rescued beagle Guy to the royal wedding.

Origin

On 21 May 2018, Facebook users shared a post about the purported rags-to-riches story of Meghan Markle's rescued beagle Guy, culminating in the dog escorting Queen Elizabeth to the royal wedding reception earlier that week:

-In 2015 a Beagle was found alone in the woods in Kentucky

-The Beagle was found by a good samaritan and brought to a shelter

-No one wanted to adopt the Beagle who unfortunately was at a kill shelter and put on the euthanasia list.

-Days before the Beagle was to be put down, a Beagle rescue group in Canada was contacted by the shelter and decided to take him in....to Canada.

-Groups of dog lovers took turns driving the Beagle in one hour shifts from Kentucky to Toronto.

-At a normal run of the mill adoption event a woman who was temporarily working in Toronto saw the Beagle and decided he was for her.

-The woman named the Beagle... Guy.

-That woman was an actress named Meghan Markle.

-Meghan Markle ended up marrying Prince Harry.

-On his owners wedding day, Guy the Beagle rode in a car to the wedding reception with the Queen of England.

-Guy, the stray beagle from Kentucky now lives at Kensington Palace.

meghan markle rescued guy the beagle

The item was shared tens of thousands of times, but it included no sources to support its claims and readers asked about the veracity of the claim.

Markle's beagle garnered attention after the high-profile wedding, but that wasn't the first time Guy's purported backstory had been shared. On 28 November 2017, the Ontario-based A Dog's Dream Rescue shared Guy's adoption story:

The post was not the sole source for the claim that Guy rode shotgun alongside Queen Elizabeth to the royal wedding reception: Town and Country was among outlets reporting that Guy "may have" been at the reception, W wrote that the beagle traveled alongside the monarch, and Harper's Bazaar made similar claims. YouTube even featured a number of robotically-voiced clips making claims that "Meghan Markle's dog gets a ride with the Queen to royal wedding":

Every link we found sourced the claim back to a UK tabloid, which — in a brief and soundless looping clip — reported only that the Queen was sighted "driving to Windsor ahead of [the] royal wedding." No reference was made to the dog in the car. Many cameras captured her arrival at the event itself, without a Range Rover or any dogs at all:

Footage of the Queen traveling with an unidentified dog appeared on 18 May 2018, one day prior to the event:

The story appeared to originate the same day in a post on LaineyGossip.com about Guy traveling with the Queen. While it is true Queen Elizabeth was spotted traveling with an unidentified dog prior to the wedding, she also owns two "dorgis," or dachschund-corgi mixes. Queen Elizabeth arrived at the ceremony in a different vehicle and unaccompanied by a dog, and claims about her travels with on the day of the royal wedding appear to be inferences based only on brief footage captured a day before the wedding.

Sources

Angell, Elizabeth.   "Meghan Markle's Dog Guy Might Have Been at the Royal Wedding Reception."     Town & Country.   21 May 2018.

Belam, Martin.   "The Queen's Corgis Are Dead: Long Live The 'Dorgis'."     The Guardian.   18 April 2018.

Gonzales, Erica.   "Meghan Markle's Dog Rode With The Queen To Windsor Because He's The True Star Of The Royal Wedding."     Publication.   18 May 2018.

Wang, Evelyn.   "Meghan Markle's Beagle Appears To Catch A Ride With The Queen."     W.   18 May 2018.

Lainey Gossip.   "The Queen & Guy."     18 May 2018.

Kim LaCapria is a former writer for Snopes.