Lena Dunham Gets Grief For Giving Up Beloved Rescue Dog
Image by Getty Images
As the saying goes: Bite my butt once, shame on you. Bite my butt twice, I’m giving you back and replacing you with baby poodles.
Lena Dunham issued an emotional Instagram post yesterday explaining that she and her boyfriend, musician Jack Antonoff, were forced to give up her beloved dog Lamby.
“After four years of challenging behavior and aggression that could not be treated with training or medication or consistent loving dog ownership,” Dunham wrote, “Lamby went to live at an amazing professional facility in Los Angeles.”
Like Lena Dunham herself, Lamby has become a polarizing figure over the years. The adorably woebegone-looking Lamby was a fixture on Dunham’s social media (he had his own Insta) and in her writing. But after uploading a picture of her own backside, clothed but spotted with coagulated blood after being bitten by Lamby, both dog and Dunham faced backlash. Gawker wrote a vicious article insisting that Lamby be take away from Lena, claiming that she “does not care enough about Lamby to keep him from going around biting people.” Then, after Dunham tweeted a defense, Cosmopolitan magazine wrote a retort to Gawker asking that we “stop shaming Lena for adopting a dog that needs some extra care.”
We have a special-need rescue dog who has bitten me twice, under specific circumstances, in our own home… He has an amazing trainer…
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) May 30, 2014
Dunham alluded to the true health and safety concerns involved in caring for Lamby in her Instagram post, saying, “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).”
She added, “If you have a similar situation, please know it’s possible to responsibly re-home your rescue rather than sending them back into the shelter system.”
Before re-homing Lamby, Dunham adopted two poodles, Susan and Karen, and introduced them during a visit to the “Tonight Show” last February, where she described Lamby, in absentia, as “more of a laid-back West Coast dude.”
Truly, having to let go of a dog after four years of loving pet ownership is incredibly painful, and our hearts go out to anyone who has had to make that decision. A true cultural philosopher might recall that in March 2015 Lena Dunham wrote an article in the New Yorker that jokingly compared her dog to her “Jewish boyfriend”, listing similarities like “he doesn’t tip”, and “he comes from a culture in which mothers focus every ounce of their attention on their offspring and don’t acknowledge their own need for independence as women.” This article was derided by many, including the Anti-Defamation League, for resorting to Jewish stereotypes and comparing a Jew to a dog. It is exciting to realize now that Lena Dunham was not comparing Jewish men to all furry friends, but specifically to a dog who cannot safely live among regular humans due to behavioral issues, incontinence, and a butt-biting problem.
On the “Tonight Show”, Dunham told Jimmy Fallon that her two new poodles are cousins, one Italian and one Jewish. Susan, the Jewish dog, spent the rest of the interview biting Fallon’s hand.
Dunham, Susan, and Karen on “The Tonight Show”:
Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny.
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