The Saga of Lena Dunham's Dog Lamby, the Walking Internet Receipt

If you’ve been online at all over the past week or so, amidst the revenge porn and the doxing you’ve probably noticed some ongoing drama surrounding Lena Dunham and something called a "Lamby." And being a well-adjusted person who doesn't immediately dive down every internet rabbit hole you see thanks to a mixture of curiosity and self-loathing, you probably have only the faintest idea of what anyone is talking about. Don't worry. I'm here to fix that.

Friend, you have missed out on a saga for the ages—a sprawling, convoluted bildungsroman full of intrigue and betrayal. First and foremost, Lamby is Lena Dunham's rescue dog. (Or rather, Lamby was Lena Dunham's rescue dog. More on that shortly.) As you well know, the internet loves dogs. The internet, however, does not necessarily love Lena Dunham. Then there's that whole social-media-posts-might-seem-like-transient-thoughts-but-actually-never-really-go-away thing. Stir those phenomena together—dogs, a lightning rod, and receipts—and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a social-media debacle the likes of which are all too rare.

From the beginning, at least according to Lena Dunham, Lamby was a problem; Dunham wrote about the dog's various (alleged) neuroses in a New Yorker essay back in March of 2013. Then, late in June, she revealed that she'd given Lamby up to a canine rehabilitation facility in Los Angeles. Last week, though, the shelter where Dunham had originally adopted Lamby (BARC Shelter in Brooklyn) countered many of the claims she'd made. This, in turn, was followed by an onslaught of counter claims from various parties—almost all of which took place on Twitter and Instagram.

The question of what actually happened while Lamby was in Dunham's care continues to loom large. Fortunately for us, Dunham is a prolific and candid user of social media. All a person has to do—admittedly, a sick, irrationally curious person—is comb back through the Lamby Years and put together the pieces.

Lambygate Unfolds

On June 21, in the year of our Lord 2017, Lena Dunham uploaded a photo of Lamby to Instagram for the first time in more than six months. This photo was accompanied by a lengthy explanation of Lamby's recent absence.

An excerpt of Dunham's post:

Shortly after the announcement, The Cut visited The Zen Dog's facilities and learned from owner Matt Beisner that, when Lamby first checked in, he was "a hot mess and a train wreck"—heavily medicated, ill-tempered, and with a penchant for drinking his own urine. However, The Zen Dog seemingly worked its magic: The woman who subsequently adopted Lamby from the rehab facility, a onetime Zen Dog trainer named Dani Shay, posted a compassionate Instagram of Lamby enjoying his new life.

Shay addressed Dunham directly in the post, writing, "it's a gift to care for an animal, at any capacity. They feel our hearts' intention to love them, even when changes are needed, and they love us back. They can often thrive in new homes, if the transition is executed thoughtfully and responsibly by everyone involved. So thanks again for sharing Lamby with me, and being his first home out of the shelter. He is loved, learning new things, and cracking me and my friends up all the time. I adore him."

Then, last week, BARC—the shelter where Dunham had originally adopted Lamby—refuted her version of the story. In an email exchange with a Yahoo reporter, a staffer at the shelter checked the dog's records to find that he had been "owner surrendered, not enough time," and exhibited no signs of abuse or aggression. "If Lamby had a bad past or was abused," he wrote, "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.”

Dunham took to Instagram to defend her time as Lamby's benefactor.

Which of course meant it was time for BARC to weigh in directly.

Someone who claimed to be a friend of Lamby's new owner seemed to be on BARC's side.

And thankfully, according to him, Lamby's been doing great.

But what's going on here, exactly? A woman found herself with a troubled dog she was not equipped to handle and decided the dog would be better off with someone who was. Everything worked out for the best—so why such differing accounts of Lamby's temperament? Can everyone be telling the truth? That's where those receipts come in.

Litigating Lamby

In a series of tweets in May of 2014, Dunham revealed that, even since her New Yorker essay—which included the line "The classic reasons that people have dogs … are only intellectual concepts in the face of this squealing lunatic"—the Lamby situation had not improved. In a since-deleted Instagram post, Dunham shared photographic evidence of a Lamby gone rogue.

Later that day, Tom Scocca of Gawker (where, full disclosure, I used to write) wrote a post titled "Take Away Lena Dunham's Spoiled, Vicious Dog Before It Attacks Again." This did not sit well with Dunham, who tweeted in defense of Lamby (and herself).

According to Dunham, the doorbell frightened Lamby—a somewhat understandable outcome if the dog is extremely skittish and a little confused and also your doorbell just happens to be particularly loud. However, just the day before, Dunham had tweeted this:

Wait a second. If Lamby's aggression only ever kicked in in response to sobbing, why claim the doorbell as the trigger? Well, at least those were the only two things that could set Lamby off. Right?

Oh. So was it the sobbing, the doorbell, or the pushups? Or was it, as Dunham claimed at yet another point, that she was simply wearing shorts too short for Lamby's liking? I reached out to Dunham for clarification on Lamby's specific trigger, after which she promptly blocked me on Twitter. I will update if and when I hear back.

Creating further confusion (and still in response to the Gawker post), Dunham went on to claim, "He's never show [sic] aggression to anyone anywhere else but that doesn't mean he couldn't, so I'm vigilant." Yet in July 2013, just a few months after her published essay, the following exchange had occurred between Dunham, her boyfriend's sister, and some friends:

And just last Friday, Jack Antonoff, Dunham's boyfriend, weighed in:

Obviously, the details regarding the extent of and specific triggers that caused Lamby's aggression are murky at best. Still, if we're to believe Dunham, Lamby had a predisposition towards aggression before he ever entered Lena's care. According to the shelter, though, this wasn't the case:

Why, then, might Lamby have been so inconsolable during the Dunham years? Dunham herself, whether wittingly or not, appears to have some ideas.

Still, over the past week or so, Dunham has not been entirely without her defenders. Taffy Akner, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, supported Dunham's explanation of events—based on her sister being one of the six vets Dunham consulted about Lamby.

According to Tracy Akner's website, AcupunctureForYourDog.com, Akner "has had great success in treating many pets with acupuncture, nutritional and herbal therapy"—so I emailed her to ask about the nature of Lamby's treatment. "I treated Lamby in 2013," she wrote back, "for poorly predictable human-directed aggression with acupuncture and Chinese herbs."

The Zen Dog has also come out in staunch defense of Dunham:

Dunham, meanwhile, seems to be doing fine with her two new toy poodles, Susan and Karen. Her boyfriend, Jack, also appears to be taking Lamby's absence in stride:

But of course, the internet will never forever speculate wildly. (Should Lena Dunham be investigated for animal cruelty? No, the real problem was that Lena Dunham gave up on Lamby.)

We'll likely never know exactly what happened with (to?) Lamby, but if nothing else, the dispute highlights just how permanent social media can be. Every tweet that vents frustration at a keening dog, every shared joke among friends, even a deleted photo can take on unintended significance years down the road. No single moment in time can tell a story—but the ever-accruing feed that you send into the world can portray all kinds of narratives. That goes for Lena Dunham, other celebrities, and the general public as well.

Lamby almost certainly experienced trauma at some point in his life, and he seems to be doing significantly better in his new home. Hopefully Susan and Karen are benefitting from whatever Dunham might have learned from her experiences with Lamby. Either way, she certainly isn't tweeting about it. Oh, wait.

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