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Abbey, The Dog From I Am Legend, Is Now 13 And Enjoying Her Retirement

Rachel Andrews

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Abbey, The Dog From I Am Legend, Is Now 13 And Enjoying Her Retirement

Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Warning - if you still haven't seen I Am Legend almost 11 years after its release, then don't read on as there are spoilers ahead.

You'd be lying if you said you weren't sobbing into your sofa when Robert Neville (Will Smith) had to kill his own dog in I Am Legend after she was bitten by the zombie hounds.

Samantha was Robert's best and only friend, and the moments were truly heartbreaking for even the most cold-hearted of cinema-goers.

The German Shepherd dog was given to him by his daughter as a puppy before she died in a helicopter crash, and their unbreakable bond was touching.

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But before you start tearing up at just the thought of the I Am Legend scenes, then it turns out that Abbey - the pooch actress - is still very much alive and living her best life.

Abbey living her best life. Credit: Steve Berrens
Abbey living her best life. Credit: Steve Berrens

The dog is still living with her trainer, Steve Berens', family and she is enjoying a well-deserved retirement.

"She's older now and she doesn't hear hardly anything," Steve told LADbible. "But she's still kicking, she still likes a ball and likes a bone."

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According to Steve, who runs animal training company Animals of Distinction, Abbey instantly became family after the movie's bosses asked him to find and train a German Shepherd for the role of Sam.

He explained: "She was trained a lot of the basics that you need for film work, and then directly for those scenes.

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"It was stressful at first, but she really came on good. She's a good dog and she really learned fast."

And if your heart hasn't already burst with happiness just yet, then learning that Abbey and Will loved working with one another might just do it.

"When you work with a lot of actors, they're not that interested in the animal - a lot of actors look at it as something that the audience is going to be looking at instead of them," recalled Steve.

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"But Will was not at all like that. He understood that this was his co-star, and he really dug it and really got into it. He was a fabulous guy to work with.

Credit: Warner Bros.
Credit: Warner Bros.

"I think that she really liked him, and that made a difference. I think that's one thing in the film I was very happy with, and very proud of - the relationship was really solid."

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Rumours were rife on set that Will wanted to keep Abbey as his own after the pair grew close during filming, and although Steve wasn't completely against it, he was a little hesitant.

"Kind of through the channels he had mentioned that, but he didn't really say that directly to me," he explained.

Credit: Steve Berrens
Credit: Steve Berrens

"I didn't want to see that end badly - you know how a lot of these stars fall in love with their co-stars, and then once they move on to the next picture, they're off and running.

"If he would have come to me directly, possibly - I don't know. When you train and you spend that much time personally, it's quite a relationship that you develop. She's always been with us, in the house and around our other animals. She's just always been a big part of our family."

I Am Legend was Abbey's biggest movie to date, and she went on to have a couple of other smaller roles, although her main gig is as Steve's family pet.

Topics: TV Entertainment, Will Smith

Rachel Andrews
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