Indelible ink spells love and devotion

Kyra's dog Phantom is gone but not forgotten. The mock-up of her desired tattoo includes the words "We all have a guardian."


I’ve never considered getting a tattoo.

It's not the pain that bothers me. It's the permanence. The pretty pictures might mesmerize me now, but the thought of watching the ink stretch and wrinkle while the years tick by is depressing.

So when the 12-year-old daughter of a university chum pronounced she was going to get one when she was old enough, I tried to talk her out of it. The three of us had been hanging out in a Whistler Mountain hotel room watching L.A. Ink, a television program that centers on the comings and goings at a Los Angeles tattoo parlor.

My explanation of the beautiful tattoo turning ugly one day held up until she presented me with her line drawing. Kyra Lambert wants to pay tribute to her dog Phantom, a Bouvier who died when she was five.

The thought was so touching that even I had to admit her tattoo would be beautiful in any format, at any age.

If only homes for animals were as permanent as tattoos. About eighty percent of companion animals won’t get a forever home, and will instead wind up in the incinerator or at a rendering plant to be turned into tires, fertilizer and cosmetics.

I have a feeling that when Kyra grows up, she’ll get her tattoo and some animals of her own to nurture.

And I’m confident that she’ll have both for life.


Kyra Lambert lost her Bouvier Phantom, but now she has her beloved poodles Diva and Shiraz.


Here's Kyra and her mom Kimothy Walker chilling on Whistler Mountain. Kimothy is an anchorwoman for CTV News in Ottawa, Ontario. We graduated from Carleton University's renowned School of Journalism together.