CNN —
When it comes to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s grandchildren and his love for animals, it turns out the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Schwarzenegger – who is grandfather to daughter Katherine Schwarzenegger’s two children with Chris Pratt, Lyla and Eloise – says three-year-old Lyla is especially fond of his many pets, which includes a dog, a miniature horse, a donkey and a pig.
When Lyla comes to visit him, the former California governor told People in an interview published on Saturday that “the first thing that Lyla would say is, ‘Where’s Cherry?’ Which is my little dog. I say, ‘Cherry’s waiting for you.’”
He went on to share more of what Lyla and her mom would talk about, also revealing that his granddaughter calls him “Opa,” which is the German word for grandfather.
“‘Mommy, can we go over to see Opa, to see Cherry?’ ‘Sure, we go tomorrow.’ So they come over: ‘Cherry, Cherry, Cherry,’” Schwarzenegger told the publication, adding that Lyla then “holds Cherry in her lap.”
But to Lyla’s delight, the septuagenarian film star has a whole stable of pet animals in addition to Cherry, including a pig named Schnelly, a miniature horse named Whiskey and a miniature donkey called Lulu.
“Then I get the pig around and then she likes the pig and feeds the pig,” Schwarzenegger described. “Then I said ‘You want to come out? Let’s go out to the stable and see the horses.’ Okay, then take my hand and then we walk out to the fields and she goes to the stables and she visits the horses.”