Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have welcomed a new addition to their family - a pet dog.
The couple has adopted a seven-year-old beagle called Mamma Mia from an animal shelter after she was rescued when the animal testing facility she had been living at shut down earlier this year. The new pet joins the pair and their children Archie and Lilibet - along with their other dogs Guy, another beagle, and Pula, a labrador - at their home in Montecito, California. Mamma Mia - or just Mia - was rescued from her life as a breeder for the research facility and had recently been taken in by an organisation called the Beagle Freedom Project based in California.
According to Shannon Keith, who runs the project, she was called by Meghan to register her interest in adopting a beagle.
The couple then reportedly made an after-hours visit to the project, where they played with Mamma Mia and eight of her newborn puppies.
But according to Ms Keith, the couple was interested in the older dog - and not the younger pups.
She told the LA Times : "The duchess is holding Mia and was like, ‘We’re adopting her'.
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"She was like 'No, we don’t want a Christmas puppy. … We want ones we can help who are older'."
It's not the first time that Meghan has adopted a dog from an animal shelter, in 2012 she took in Bogart a Labrador-German shepherd mix.
On meeting Bogart at the shelter, Meghan also ran into talk show host Ellen DeGeneres - and says Ellen persuaded her to take in the pet.
Recalling the encounter in an interview in Best Health in 2017, Meghan said: "Now, I don't know her, but Ellen goes 'Is that your dog?'
"And I said, 'No,' and she's like, 'You have to take that dog.' And I said, 'Well, I'm deciding.' And she's like, 'Rescue the dog!'"
"It's sort of like if Oprah tells you to do something. I'm sitting there holding him and she's like 'Have you thought of a name for him yet?' And I said, 'Well, I think I'd name him Bogart,' and she's like 'You're taking the dog home.'
"And she walks outside to get into her car but instead of getting in she turns around and comes and taps on the window glass and she yells 'Take the dog!' And so I brought him home. Because Ellen told me to."
Bogart and Guy lived with Meghan in Toronto while she was an actress on the hit legal drama Suits.
When she moved to the UK and set up home with her future husband, Meghan brought Guy with her, but left Bogart behind, with insiders saying it was because he was too old to fly.
This was never confirmed by the Palace, however, they said Bogart was "living with friends", and explained that moving him to the UK "would have lots of complexity to it".
