When Nico slunk into my rental house in Los Angeles and gazed at me with her haunted eyes, I knew I had found my Polaris. Eerily tranquillised, with a large knife wound from shoulder to hip, the traumatised German shepherd I had volunteered to dog-sit had arrived – and I knew right then that I would never give her back.
Nico had belonged to a friend – and was loved – but one night burglars had broken in, encountered Nico and stabbed her viciously. She had become too hard to handle and was sent to kennels. When I heard of Nico’s plight, I thought: why not have her to stay? This was back in the early 90s and I was a struggling actor in Hollywood with time on my hands. Little did I know she would become my beautiful leading lady for many years.
