Jimmy Fallon is mourning the loss of his beloved dog, Gary, who he called his “first baby.”
The Tonight Show host, 51, shared a heartfelt Instagram post on Monday honoring the English cream golden retriever he and wife Nancy Juvonen, 58, adopted more than 13 years ago.
“She was our first baby, a therapist, a pillow, a big sister, a schoolgirl, a comedian, a party girl and a rebel,” Fallon wrote. “She would have let burglars in and shown them where we kept the bacon and cheese slices.”
He fondly remembered her playful habits – jumping into the pool after each bath and rolling on the grass with her tongue out. “That meant summer to me. Thirteen and a half years we were lucky to have you,” he said.
Fallon ended the post by describing how the family is coping without Gary. “Franny, Winnie, Mom and I miss you. The house is so quiet. The silence is so loud. But that silence is slowly being filled with stories about you and laughter between the sniffles,” he wrote.
The tribute included several photos of Gary over the years with Fallon, Juvonen and their daughters Franny, 10, and Winnie, 12.
In a 2017 interview, Fallon shared that Gary first appeared on his show as a puppy during a comedy sketch. Her “pundit” name was Gary Frick Jr. “We were trying to have kids at the time and she was a distraction while we were working on it,” he shared People Magazine.
