They say a dog is a man’s best friend – for Kristen Bell, it goes far beyond that.

The “Veronica Mars” star, 33, said that while she was pregnant in 2012 and early 2013 with daughter Lincoln, she actually didn’t have a connection with her and worried that when the baby was born, she might favor her furry friends.

“I kept saying to [Dax Shepard, her husband] in all sincerity during my pregnancy, ‘I just don’t know how I’m going to like her as much as I like the dogs,’” she told Flare magazine for its December cover. “I was being serious. Because I f–king love my dogs; they are my children.”

Bell explained that she loves people the more she gets to know them and while a baby might have been forming in her belly, she didn’t know her at all.

“It could’ve been a water bottle in my belly, that’s about how connected I felt to her during my pregnancy,” she added.

But once Bell saw her daughter’s face, all her worries immediately disappeared and now she loves her daughter more than anything.

“Within about 24 hours after she came out, my hormones reset, and they reprogrammed my feelings about her,” she said.

Bell added that she and her new husband, whom she married last month at the Beverly Hills County Clerk’s Office after six years of dating, are also very protective of their daughter.

“I would really not like to see the aftermath of the first person who tries to take a picture of Lincoln,” she said. ”There are going to be a lot of stitches.”

What happens if someone takes a picture of her dogs?