The pet I’ll never forget: Elizabeth Hurley on Nico the stabbed dog, ‘the loyal angel who kept me safe’

I adopted her after she had been attacked during a burglary. She went from eating out of my hand to being my beautiful leading lady

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.