Abigail Breslin came for zombies; she left with a puppy

This is about a puppy that almost died, a girl who’d been begging for a puppy for three years, and how it took a lot of luck, a bit of finagling and a zombie movie to bring the two together.

The puppy is an Australian shepherd mix named Ellie, who was rescued along with four siblings from a Bartow County animal shelter. The girl is Abigail Breslin, 12, the Academy Award-nominated actress who starred in “Little Miss Sunshine.” The movie is “Zombieland,” which started filming in the Atlanta area in February. (See photos of the adoption here!)

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Janssen Pimentel

Oscar-nominated actress Abigail Breslin holds Andalucia, whom she adopted after a chance meeting in Powder Springs.

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Janssen Pimentel

Andalucia gets a ride after being adopted from Southern Hope Humane Society.

• Photos of the adoption

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On March 11, “Zombieland,” which stars Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail, was filming at a vacant supermarket in Powder Springs. The stars’ trailers were behind the strip mall that day. So was a pen for a local veterinarian’s office. That’s where the luck came in.

That afternoon, Stacey Hall, founder of Southern Hope Humane Society, dropped off four puppies at that vet’s office — including Ellie and her brother. It was a visit Hall thought she might never make. Ellie and her siblings became deathly sick two days after leaving the shelter. Ellie, Hall said, was the worst. For four nights, Hall said, she went to bed expecting the puppy to be gone the next morning. But all the treatments pulled her through. Now she was about to be spayed so she could find a home.

That pen of puppies was like a siren to Abigail, who’d been begging her parents for a puppy since the age of 10. And of all the puppies, it was the tan and white puppy with the black spots and the frosty blue eyes that stole her heart. Even mom, Kim Breslin, was smitten.

“She just seemed to take to Abby,” Kim Breslin said of Ellie. “She went right to her and just seemed to bond with her.”

Then Abigail heard the puppies belonged to a rescue group and needed a home. That’s when the finagling started. The call to dad, Michael, back in New York, went like this: “I told him, ‘Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please. If you let me have her I won’t ask for anything else for my birthday, or my next birthday, or the next,’” said Abigail, who turns 13 on April 14.

But even getting dad on board didn’t guarantee the adoption. Another family had already been approved for one of the Aussie pups. But in the end Ellie’s brother was a better fit for the other family. The Breslins could adopt Ellie.

So on March 14, Abigail, fellow actor and brother Spencer Breslin, 16, and their mom arrived at Southern Hope’s Roswell shelter to pick up the pup. And while Abigail might be a seasoned acting vet, on that afternoon, she was all little girl.

“Andalucia” she squealed, throwing open her arms for the puppy when Hall walked into the room with the 12-week-old ball of fluff. “You’re the best birthday gift ever.”

Abigail and Spencer had agreed on the name, his suggestion from a John Cale song. After more than an hour of bonding and filling out paperwork (the family paid the usual fee of $175 to adopt the pup) it was time to leave.

That’s when they discovered the carrier they had purchased was too small. No problem, Hall said, pointing out the Top Dogs Pet Boutique in the same shopping center.

There, they spotted a hot pink doggie stroller, and shortly Andalucia was strolling out in style.