Kellan Lutz volunteered at dog shelter in Bulgaria

Actor Kellan Lutz recently helped to raise more than $200,000 for a local dog shelter in Bulgaria after recruiting the cast and crew of his new movie The Legend Of Hercules to lend a hand.

The animal-loving Twilight star, who had previously worked on The Expendables 3 there, returned to the European country to shoot the new action film last year (13), and he was so saddened to see so many abandoned pets on the streets of Sofia, he decided to do something about it.

He explains, "There's no laws (in Bulgaria) against what you do with your pets so a lot of people get dogs and... there's strays everywhere and it breaks my heart how un-taken care of they are and there's this amazing organization that would rescue the dogs.

"They hold 500 dogs in this small facility and they don't euthanise. So Renny (Harlin, director) and Gaia (Weiss, co-star) and all of the cast from Hercules, we decided to help out and we'd go there on our off days and walk the dogs. We even named one Hercules, and someone in Dublin (Ireland), I believe, bought Hercules from them. We also raised over $200,000 for this place."