Ten Danson remembers exactly when he became a dog lover.
“It was after I met my wife’s dog, Lucy, who was a rescued Australian Shepherd mix,” Danson tells actress Glenn Close during an interview for Close’s animal-related blog, Lively Licks. “She was an amazing dog who actually understood English. She was very demonstrative.”
Danson says Lucy’s herding DNA emerged when the former “Cheers” actor and his wife, Mary Steenburgen, danced together. “She was very civilized until the cattle dog instincts took over and she tried to tackle us and knock [Mary] over,” Danson says.
Several months after Lucy passed away, Danson and Steenburgen found rescue dog Lulu on a trip to Mexico. “Mary woke up that morning saying, ‘Lucy will find us a dog today,’” Danson remembers. “Later that day, driving back from a restaurant, Mary suddenly shouted, ‘Stop!’ She had seen a little face peering through a hole in an old adobe wall. We got out and tracked her down.”
Lulu, a terrier mix, had been running with a pack of street dogs and was covered with fleas, ticks, and sores. “It took her eight months to recover,” Danson says. “She is now our family’s pride.”