In what seems like the never-ending drama of Lena Dunham’s life, she has now found herself at odds with a dog shelter named BARC.
In case you missed the start of the story, the whole thing went down in later June, when Lena announced via Instagram that after four years with her dog Lamby, she had decided to surrender him to a professional facility that had experience dealing with troubled dogs. In the post, she wrote,
“But I feel I have to share that last March, after four years of challenging behavior and aggression that could not be treated with training or medication or consistent loving dog ownership, Lamby went to live at an amazing professional facility in Los Angeles.”
She then added,
“Lamby suffered terrible abuse as a pup that made having him in a typical home environment dangerous to him and others- we needed to be responsible to ourselves, our neighbors and especially our beloved boy. Jack and I will miss him forever but sometimes when you love something you have to let it go (especially when it requires tetanus shots and stitches.) Someday I’ll really write about the pain and relief of letting Lamby go off and really be Lamby, biting and peeing in his own mouth and all.”
And this is where the trouble begins. According to BARC, this “history of abuse” never actually happened. And they’re not going to stand by and allow Dunham to give Lamby a bad name.
In an email interview with Yahoo!, A spokesperson for BARC said,
We checked the records for Lamby. He was ‘owner surrendered, not enough time,’ so we do not know where she got ‘multiple owners that abused the dog.’ When she adopted the dog from us, it wasn’t crazy. have pictures of the dog loving on Lena and her mom, which is weird if the dog was abused. It wouldn’t be cuddling with her or be in the bed with her ‘boyfriend’ in the pages of Vogue…. I’ve been in charge of the dogs for the last 14-15 years at BARC. If Lamby had a bad past or was abused, do you think BARC would have adopted him to Lena knowing she’s a new star and put her — or the dog — in that situation? We would have told her if the dog had issues. We are a no-kill shelter. We don’t lie about the dogs’ histories because that gets them returned — and mentally it’s not good for dogs.”
If only that was the end of the saga.
Lena Dunham has gone back to Instagram in response and said,
“It’s come to my attention that the staff at the shelter where I adopted Lamby have a very different account of his early life and behavioral issues than I do. While I’m sorry to have disappointed them, I can’t apologize.”
She added,
“I would never say an unkind word about the staff of BARC, what they do is amazing and life-saving for these animals- but we have different accounts of Lamby’s behavior and they were not present in my home nor did they live with him for an extended period. They did not witness the consistent and responsible care I provided.”
To be clear, we don’t think BARC is discounting how much Lena loved Lamby, or how much time/money she put into training him, just that she misrepresented Lamby’s past.
Usually, when adopted an animal from a shelter, the new owner is given the pet’s history director from the shelter, so it’s unclear where Lena got this other account of what happened to Lamby prior to her care. Either way, we hope that Lamby is getting the love and care he needs and will be able to find his forever home.
