My DogsBlog.com

I have a dog called Bobby. I found her when I was in Romania filming BloodRayne, I found her in the oldest medieval town in Europe.

She was teeny, tiny, she could fit in the palm of your hand, she must have only been a couple of months old, and she was covered in fleas, maggots you know she really wasn’t looking like she was going to make it. She travels everywhere with me from South Africa, to Van Couver – everywhere, she’s a very well travelled dog!

Its funny you know, a lot of the other people in the production office all came back with an extra animal, Michael Madison, Michelle Rodriguez, our director was a huge animal lover, he came back with a dog too!

Before I had Bobby, I had another dog, a Lab x Rottweiler called Buster, Bobby probably weighs 20 kilos and she’s medium sized, Buster was probably 35 kilos, travelling was a little tougher with Buster because he was a larger dog, sometimes it was like smaller dogs are okay – bigger dogs aren’t always welcome, but you know that’s a sacrifice, especially if you’re staying in a particular place for a certain amount of time filming. My animals coming with me is so important, its like a piece of home and I find its grounding, I always like to explore and recently in Van Couver, I was working with the same director from the film in Romania and he is a major dog lover, his two dogs, one from Romania, the other from Germany, both ran free on set and so Bobby joined them and we’d get the flashing collars for night-time. 

I have to say, I have been no where more pet friendly than Van Couver, they had room service for dogs where you could order treats, there were so many walks and trails. All the costs for travelling from Romania back through South Africa and then home, its all worth while for the time we spend, walking or trekking, whatever we do, what they give back – it outweighs it all.

I got Buster form a humane society in North New York, I’d decided to go there and donate some time volunteering, Buster leaned on me and it was like, oh no, I’m a goner, and that was it really. He died a little over a year ago, I ended up having to have him put to sleep, and I just wanted to mourn my loss, then three months later there I am in Romania! I think dogs pick their owners, Bobby picked me and there was no way I was leaving without her.

I was camping in South Africa with a friend of mine and you know when you’re in another country when you’re left saying, will we be okay here with the baboons? Anyway, we were in the tent and Bobby ran in and started licking my face and we were right near the stream and we looked out and there were probably around 100 baboons and the big daddy baboon was there, it was a real territorial thing. But she knew, and she woke us, I mean baboons can do a lot of damage! She was definitely on the look out – I like to see her with other animals, the other day she was in my garden and barking like mad, I went out and I could see the big eyes of a possum I thought, that would not be a good fight, I know who’d win that one, so I brought her inside!

I learnt a lot from Buster too, he had a major impact and was a huge influence on my life, for months before he died, it was all leading up to it, he had a tumor and there was nothing which could be done about it. I remember this one day, he wasn’t well, he wasn’t eating properly and I was sick with the flu, I was cuddled up in my hammock and Buster was laying on his chair, and even though he was in so much pain, he heard someone at the gate and he got up and started barking and they left, so he could hardly move and yet, he’d gotten up to do this and scare away the intruder, his last protective act. His death was the biggest of my life.

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