Whenever he’s not cutting down bad guys with a machete, veteran actor Danny Trejo (Machete) likes spending time with his dogs. The animal lover and advocate has always had a soft spot for man’s best friend.
“Dogs give you friendship and loyalty,” Trejo, 80, told Remezcla during a recent interview. “You can yell at a dog and 10 minutes later, he’s snuggling up to you.”
In Trejo’s new animated film, Gracie and Pedro: Pets to the Rescue, one of the main characters is a Cocker Spaniel, who teams up with a British Shorthair cat on a cross-country adventure to find their family after they are accidentally separated. Trejo lends his voice to Laurence, a smart-alecky goldfish who wears dentures. “They took my machete away and gave me teeth!” Trejo joked. “With teeth, you have to get close to bite someone!”
Trejo doesn’t think he ever had a pet goldfish as a kid, but he remembers many of the dogs he raised over the years. He currently owns two pit bulls, Duke and Coco, the latter which he describes as “a short little tank.” Duke and Coco, like all of his dogs, were adopted from a shelter. “Coco was found in a park tied up to a tree,” Trejo said. “When I brought her home, she would knock things over. But the minute I put her in the backyard, she loved it. She doesn’t even like coming into the house!”
Trejo is an adamant supporter of adopting from shelters and has previously said, “They’re our responsibility, we pulled them in. They were running around free and we domesticated them. We brought them into our fire, and we’re responsible for fixing this.”
As a kid, Trejo remembers having dogs named Butch, Blacky, Bazoo and Prince. He also remembers later in life helping his friends save a shaggy dog they saw walking in the middle of a busy street in Los Angeles “We took him and got him groomed,” Trejo said. “I had that dog for about seven years.”
Decades later and Trejo still loves dogs. Having had so many dogs, he also shared that it’s never easy when one of his dogs dies. In fact, when a dog passes away, he has them cremated and their ashes placed inside a personalized memorial box. “I have so many little boxes with their names,” Trejo said. “My fireplace looks like a cemetery. I can’t get rid of them.”
One pet from his past that he remembers fondly is a pit bull named Miss Piggy. The dog was given to him by Oscar-nominated actress and fellow dog lover Linda Blair (The Exorcist). Miss Piggy had been hit by a car before Trejo took her in. Because of this, she couldn’t really walk, and ate too much. So, Trejo would help her exercise.
“[Miss Piggy] was awesome,” Trejo said. “She actually got too big. I got her in the swimming pool and held her up, and she started to lose weight. The night before she died, she jumped on the couch and gave me a kiss. The next morning, she passed away. It was really sad.”
When asked what kind of dog he would choose to be, Trejo didn’t hesitate to describe another pet he loved – a chihuahua named Dixie.
“She was the absolute meanest dog,” Danny Trejo said laughing. “She would attack a gorilla. But I took care of her. God made dogs to run free, and we’re the ones who domesticated them. So, now they’re our responsibility.”
Gracie and Pedro: Pets to the Rescue is currently playing at theaters nationwide.
