Carrie Fisher's beloved bulldog Gary is 'doing great,' says 'Auntie Joely' Fisher

There were so many heartbreaking elements to the sudden passing of Carrie Fisher, but one was the question of what would happen to her BFF canine companion Gary, the therapy dog she took everywhere and credited with helping her deal with bipolar disorder. Nearly a year later, the pooch is doing just fine, according to Joely Fisher.

Yahoo Lifestyle caught up with the author of Growing Up Fisher: Musings, Memories, and Misadventures on Tuesday while she was promoting her tome — which features stories about her life (and, yes, her big sister) on Build Series NYC. We had to ask “Auntie Joely” for an update on the famous French bulldog, who has been living with Carrie’s assistant, Corby McCoin.

“I had a visit with Corby recently who is Gary’s new mommy, and he’s doing great,” Joely says.

While she posted a photo during a visit with the pup earlier this year, “I only get to see him like you guys — on social media” these days, she says of the pooch with the mega following. “I know that he’s appearing at Comic-Con,” she laughs, referring to his sold-out appearance at the cosplay convention in San Diego in July (yes, we said sold out) as well as some subsequent smaller ones.

While there are some very dishy stories to come out of Joely’s book, she also writes about her famous family’s love of animals, which started when she was a kid under mom Connie Stevens’s roof. (Her dad was Eddie Fisher.)

“Those are our four-legged children,” she says. “We love our animals very dearly. But that relationship — Carrie and Gary — was spectacular. I have a couple of pictures of Gary eating spaghetti and meatballs off a fork on Carrie’s bed, and now and again, I’ll be searching for something, and they come up. He’s a person. He’s not a dog.”

Carrie took the dog, whose tongue has a mind of its own, everywhere, including on the red carpet and to the White House, and he helped her cope with her mental illness. As she told the Herald Tribune in 2015, “Gary is very devoted to me and that calms me down. He’s anxious when he’s away from me.” And the love ran deep. “My mother says Gary is a hooligan. Gary is like my heart.” He was traveling with her when she had a heart attack aboard a plane last December.

The dog has become even more popular since Carrie died. He recently surpassed 150,000 Instagram followers with help from posts including a touching tribute to Carrie on what would have been her 61st birthday last month. He followed up his San Diego Comic-Con appearance with another one at L.A. Comic Con a couple weeks ago. Last weekend, he was at Kansas City Comic Con. (A portion of the money the dog gets for appearances goes to charity.)

Yup, we’d say that Gary is doing great, too.

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