queen victoria: excellent pet mother

Or so at least The Spectator periodical asserted in a sympathetic article shortly after her passing.  The whole article is worthy of a read, but I thought you might like this part best - especially at the end where Kipling name-checks Her Majesty in a bit of genteel dognapping.

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. . . After the death of the Prince Consort the Queen never lost her fondness for her animals, and without in the least being over-sentimental with them, set a most desirable example to people who love their pets "not wisely but too well" how to make them happy themselves and a source of happiness to herself and others. As very many people who are by way of being devoted to animals make the creatures' lives by no means a success, and anything but a source of pleasure to other people who do not happen to be their owners, some of her late Majesty's methods have a practical value. She only kept good, wellbred creatures, and she saw that these were maintained in good health and wholesome surroundings, and that people looked after them properly. 

At Windsor her dogs, instead of being kept in cold kennels in some sunless court of the Castle, or banished to various keepers' lodges in the park where it would be nobody's business to look after them, were all housed in a cosy part of the Home Park, in niort sunny kennels near her own cottage, where she could have them let loose upon the lawn when she breakfasted there, and see them when she pleased without waste of time. Nothing could be better managed than the Royal stables. But her Majesty would occasionally come round at tbat happy hour, afternoon feeding time, and see for herself how her horses were eating their com. Kipling's private in " Soldiers Three" condones his terrier-stealing proclivities by remarking that the Queen herself likes a well-bred dog. . .

   -- from (anon.) "The Queen's Love for Animals," The Spectator, No. 3,789, February 9, 1901 pp. 199-200.