Peter Falk Almost Refused To Include One Of Columbo's Most Beloved Characters

Famed detective Lieutenant Columbo, played to perfection by Peter Falk, isn't exactly your average TV cop. He's a bit meandering and doesn't seem particularly beholden to many social norms, wearing a rumpled raincoat and carrying a cigar almost wherever he goes. Over each wonderful, lengthy episode of "Columbo" (they run around an hour and 40 minutes without commercials), the eponymous detective will solve the murder shown at the beginning of the story using his well-honed powers of perception, and for the most part he is the only recurring character on the series. Different guest stars appeared as new murderers and victims each week, with Columbo himself serving as the only connecting thread, with one small exception: Columbo's pet Basset Hound, Dog.

Beginning in season 2, Columbo occasionally had Dog pal around with him on various cases, serving as a kind of mostly-useless sidekick. Dog is good for sometimes getting the people Columbo interviews to open up a little more, but mostly he just wanders or has Columbo carry him around, as he's a senior citizen canine. He has become so much a part of "Columbo" that the bronze statue of Peter Falk as the detective in Budapest, Hungary, also has a matching bronze statue of Dog! When Falk first heard about introducing Dog, however, he wasn't exactly a fan — until he saw the doggy actor that would be portraying his TV pup. 

In the season 2 premiere of "Columbo," "Étude in Black," the good lieutenant appears in a vet's office with a big old Basset Hound, and when the vet tells Columbo that the dog is quite healthy, he's a bit shocked. You see, Columbo apparently adopted the dog because the old canine was on his last legs and Columbo wanted to give him good final days. (That kind of thing is a big part of what makes the show so comforting to watch; Columbo is just a sweetheart!) The episode's director, Nicholas Colasanto (Coach from "Cheers"!) wanted to include the dog and Falk balked, and it seemed that the idea had been dropped. In an interview with BBC Television in 1993, Falk revealed that instead  he was ambushed with the dog on set, and ended up falling in love:

"And there's this dog. And he's laid out, and he can hardly walk, he's half dead, he's a million years old, and he's irresistible. I mean, you fall in love with this thing. And I said, 'Okay, all right.' I didn't know it was going to be that kind of dog."

Much like Columbo's famous catchphrase, which came from the writers needing a placeholder, Dog's name also comes about because the detective is more focused on other things. Throughout the episode, he tries to come up with a name for Dog and is even given several suggestions, but ends up keeping things simple and sweet. 

Unfortunately, the dog that played Dog in season 2 was genuinely very old, and Falk explained to the BBC that he died and they had to get a replacement Dog. They ended up rescuing a Bassett named Henry, making a real-life rescue dog into a fictional rescue dog, but there was one little problem: Henry was much younger than the original Dog actor. Falk joked to the BBC that the dog's makeup took longer than his own, saying:

"So the problem with the new dog was that we had to make him up. Now when I go in, in the morning, it takes me about 6 seconds. I look in the mirror, I mess up my hair, and I'm made up. I'm ready to go. But sitting in the barber chair next to me is the is the new dog and he's getting the clown white on him and we had to wait every morning 15, 20 minutes for this dog to get made up."

While Dog was a pretty important guest star, he doesn't hold the record for most guest appearances. That record actually goes to Falk's real-life wife, actor Shera Danese, and I'll bet he didn't mind waiting for her in the makeup chair quite as much as he did the powdered pooch. It all worked out in the end, because Columbo and Dog are perfect partners, even if Falk was worried about being a cutesy cop with his canine companion.