Jimmy Fallon pays emotional tribute after losing family dog Gary

Jimmy Fallon is mourning the loss of his beloved dog, Gary, whom he called his “first baby.”

The Tonight Show host, 51, shared a heartfelt Instagram post on Monday, honouring 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 schoolmarm, 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 every 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 with you,” he said.

Fallon concluded the post by detailing how the family is coping without Gary. “Franny, Winnie, Mommy and I miss you. The house is so quiet. The quiet is so loud. But that quiet is slowly being filled with stories about you and laughter amongst 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 that,” he told People Magazine.