By Adam Sawatsky, host of CTV News Vancouver Island Arts & Entertainment
Click here for updates on this story
VICTORIA, B.C. (CTV Network) — On any given day, you’ll find four-year-old Amelia walking around with a lizard on a leash.
“It’s not a real lizard,” Amelia smiled, before showing how its green, rubbery body was attached to a long leash. “It’s a toy lizard.”
A stuffed lizard named Lizzy, whose story begins with a real dog named Zuri. “Zuri was my wife’s dog,” says Kyler Nurmsoo, Amelia’s father. “Since she was a puppy.”
And when his wife got pregnant, the parents-to-be couldn’t wait to introduce the dog to their little Amelia. They even took a photo of Zuri posing with a photo of Amelia’s ultrasound.
“I met the real Zuri (when I was) in my mommy’s belly,” Amelia smiles.
Sadly, they had to euthanize the real Zuri less than two months before Millie was born.
“It was devastating not to see the two of them meet,” Kyler said.
So Kyler found a stuffed chocolate lab that his wife brought to the hospital so Zuri could be there in spirit when they welcomed Amelia into the world.
“Eventually, Amelia kind of claimed this (Zuri’s) stuffed animal as her own,” Kyler says. “And she wanted to take it for a walk.”
Whenever her father walked his last dog, Balou, Amelia did the same with the stuffed animal Zuri.
“It’s especially meaningful for my wife,” Kyler said. “But certainly for both of us.”
Despite Amelia’s care for the stuffed dog, the girl considered it her parents’ pet, so when Kyler and his wife came across a store that sold a rubber lizard on a leash, they bought it.
“It’ll be perfect for Amelia to walk around in,” Kyler recalls.
They were right. Amelia and Lizzy have been walking every day since.
“It makes me happy,” Amelia said. “And it makes Lizzy happy.”
While Kyler and Balou’s goal on their walks is simply to get exercise, Amelia and Lizzie embark on creative escapades.
“That’s Lizzy’s skateboard,” Amelia smiled as she placed the stuffed lizard on a leaf and pulled it as fast as she could.
When Lizzy isn’t running down the sidewalk, the lizard bravely jumps over large rocks so Amelia can find the encouragement to do the same, before magically doing all of the four-year-old’s chores.
“(Lizzy) brushes my teeth,” Amelia imagines, laughing. “I’ll have her to clean my room. Everything!”
Anything but walking Zuri, the stuffed animal. Because that’s a routine that Amelia still enjoys.
It’s a true legacy of canine love, passed down from parent to child, to lizard, to everyone who passes by, Amelia hopes.
“It makes people really happy, happy, happy!” Amelia exclaims with a big smile.
Warning: This content is subject to a strict embargo in local markets. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you cannot use it on any platform.
