Celebrities

Lena Dunham accused by animal shelter of lying about the 'abused' dog she gave away.

Umm, did Lena Dunham lie about her &quot;abused&quot; dog Lamby&#39;s history before she gave him away last month?? Okay, let&#39;s backtrack: last month, the Girls star shared an emotional Instagram post about her beloved dog, Lamby, who she said she had to give up after &quot;four years of challenging behavior and aggression.&quot; It was sad. And also, maybe not true?         View this post on Instagram           A lot of you have been asking where Lamby is these days since he&#39;s always been the star of my gram and I&#39;ve been posting pics of my poodle girls. Well, you know honesty is my jam but this one has been really heartbreaking to talk about. 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 @matt_thezendog where an awesome person named @therealdanishay (who is educated in a rescue dog&#39;s specific trauma) loves him so hard. 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&#39;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. There were so many lessons in it, about forgiving myself and loving with an open palm and giving in to a larger plan. Shout out to @jennikonner for listening to endless hours of Lamby pain, and especially my partner @jackantonoff for loving him even when he ruined floors and couches and our life. Jack knows what Lamby means to me and he let me come to the decision in my own time even when it made his days challenging. Susan &amp; Karen will never be my first loves, but they are fuzzy and hilarious stuffing for the hole Lamby left and we cherish them deeply ❤️#lamby #thefirstcutisthedeepest #foreverlamb PS If you have a similar situation, please know its possible to responsibly re-home your rescue rather than sending them back into the shelter system. It can require patience, diligence and often a financial contribution but there are solutions that leave everyone happy and safe. You will always have been your dog&#39;s first stop outside shelter life and that&#39;s beautiful. A post shared by  Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on Jun 20, 2017 at 9:33pm PDTDunham described the decision to give him away to an &quot;amazing professional facility&quot; in L.A. as &quot;heartbreaking,&quot; adding that Lamby had &quot;suffered terrible abuse as a pup&quot; and that keeping him in a &quot;typical home environment&quot; had proved &quot;dangerous to him and others.&quot; She said Lamby, though &quot;beloved&quot; by her and her boyfriend Jack Antanoff, had &quot;ruined floors and couches and our life.&quot;Seems pretty legit, right? Welp, it might not be. Because a spokesman for BARC Shelter, the no-kill shelter in Brooklyn from which Dunham adopted Lamby in January 2013, has a different story, Yahoo reports. And it does not involve a history of abuse as Dunham had claimed.&quot;We checked the records for Lamby,&quot; Robert Vazquez told Yahoo Celebrity via email. &quot;He was &lsquo;owner surrendered, not enough time,&rsquo; so we do not know where she got &lsquo;multiple owners that abused the dog.&rsquo;&rdquo;&quot; (In a New Yorker piece from March 2013, Dunham said the dog had had &quot;three other homes, three other names, but now he&rsquo;s mine mine mine.&quot;)Woah. Vazquez&#39;s email continues: When she adopted the dog from us, it wasn&rsquo;t crazy. I have pictures of the dog loving on Lena and her mom, which is weird if the dog was abused. It wouldn&rsquo;t be cuddling with her or be in the bed with her &lsquo;boyfriend&rsquo; in the pages of Vogue. (Lamby appeared alongside Dunham in a 2014 Vogue spread, where he was photographed in bed with the actress and her Girls co-star Adam Driver).Vazquez says he was present &quot;the four times Lena visited Lamby&quot; before adopting him, &quot;because I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a new star and put her &mdash;or the dog&mdash;in that situation? We would have told her if the dog had issues. We are a no-kill shelter. We don&rsquo;t lie about the dogs&rsquo; histories because that gets them returned &mdash; and mentally it&rsquo;s not good for dogs.&quot;Here&#39;s a photo taken by Vazquez when Dunham first adopted Lamby back in 2013:https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151191905152076&amp;set=a.10150227401537076.314147.581847075&amp;type=3&amp;theaterIn the years since adopting him, Dunham frequently shared on social media about her struggles with Lamby, saying that the &quot;special needs rescue dog&quot; had bitten her twice:Lamby has bitten me twice and both times it was in response to me sobbing. Can I turn this info into some kind of animal behavior thesis?&mdash; Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) May 29, 2014 We have a special-need rescue dog who has bitten me twice, under specific circumstances, in our own home... He has an amazing trainer...&mdash; Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) May 30, 2014 And let&#39;s not forget the time she shared a gory Instagram pic after the dog allegedly (we have to use allegedly now) bit her on the butt.But Vazquez isn&#39;t buying this either. &quot;It&rsquo;s just hard to believe the dog was nasty when she took Lamby to every green room with her when Girls was still a thing 4 years ago,&quot; he told Yahoo.Vazquez is also angry that Dunham ignored a provision in the shelter&#39;s adoption papers asking that, if things don&#39;t work out with the dog, it be returned to the rescue organization instead of &quot;re-homing&quot; the animal, like Dunham did. And also urged her millions of followers to do, writing on Instagram: If you have a similar situation, please know it&rsquo;s possible to responsibly re-home your rescue rather than sending them back into the shelter system. It can require patience, diligence, and often a financial contribution, but there are solutions that leave everyone happy and safe. You will always have been your dog&rsquo;s first stop outside shelter life and that&rsquo;s beautiful. Dunham has yet to respond to these truly bizarre allegations that she lied about her dog being abused, but we&#39;ll keep you posted as the doggy-Dunham drama unfolds.Update 7/7/17: Lena Dunham&#39;s response: Lena Dunham defends giving up Lamby, her beloved rescue dog. 