REGINA LEADER-POST (Saskatchewan) 06 September 03 Lumsden woman finds 76 cm-long lizard lounging in backyard (Allan Pulga)
Regina: A Lumsden woman was surprised to find a lizard crawling around her backyard Thursday afternoon.
Karen Ryan came home at 4 p.m. and was startled as her dog began to growl at something.
"I thought is was a squirrel and I looked out and there was a bloody iguana in my yard!" she said.
Ryan, a real estate agent, said she fed it a banana but decided not to bring it into the house.
The iguana climbed up the thick vines on the lattice of her patio and stayed there all night.
Ryan said her 12-year-old son was quite excited about the lizard, measuring about 76 centimetres, or 2 1/2 feet long.
"It was quite the spectacle for a couple of hours last night. I think I had all the 12-year-olds in town in my backyard trying to get a peek at the iguana," Ryan said.
"Most of my neighbours came by, too."
Town office workers came by Friday at 10 a.m. to pick up the iguana. They took it to a nearby petting zoo, where it stayed until its owner came to identify it at noon.
Coral Asmundson is a potter in Lumsden who lives a block away from Ryan.
Her seven-year-old grandson is the owner of the runaway reptile. According to Asmundson, the iguana had been missing for six weeks.
The grandson heard his iguana, named "D.O.G.," had been found when they announced it at his elementary school Friday morning.
The iguana was lost when the boy, who is from Regina, brought his pet to his grandparents' home in Lumsden.
While playing with the iguana, he put it in a tree and it got away.
Lori Kolybaba works at a Regina pet store.
She says it's not uncommon for iguanas to escape from their owners.
"Sometimes people take them outside and they get away. In hot weather, they can climb and run quite quickly," said Kolybaba.
Lumsden woman finds 76 cm-long lizard lounging in backyard