The African LIon-Dog

As a refuge owner I get all kinds of calls, inquiries and accusations. Most wind up being very amusing in some sense. This particular incident took place a few years ago when the refuge was new enough not to have a track record of safety.

Nine o'clock in the morning, a knock comes on the door. I opened the door to find two cops looking serious. "Are any of your tigers missing?"

After I put my eyeballs back in their sockets, I brought the officers to the compound and counted tigers. They were all there. So, "No, every one's here...", as I go on to explain the gazillion safety measures I've taken.

One officer says that a lady down the street called the cops, saying she'd been trapped in her car by an African lion. I told him that I didn't have any lions and I hadn't heard about anyone who had them in the area. Apparently the woman had come home and an African lion was in her yard and trapped her in her car. When the lion walked off, she'd raced into the house and called the police.

The police in turn contacted the Tulsa Zoo saying there was an African lion on the loose. The Zoo told the police to be very careful and they dispatched someone to come out with a tranquilizer gun and a team to capture the animal.

The officer at my house told me the story and so I asked him if it could have been a mountain lion, one of which was rumored to be living in this area. He said he didn't know.

I knew that an African lion and a mountain lion would have very different behaviors, and knowing their behaviors would help the police. The officer drove me to the woman's house so I could interview her and possibly help in capturing the animal.

When I got there, she was almost hysterical. Lights were flashing, half a dozen cop cars, higher and higher officials coming and going; this was getting interesting.

I began to interview her. "How close was he?"

"Oh, he was only about six feet away!"

"Did you notice any markings?"

"No, I was too scared."

"Do you remember the shape of its ears?" (Mountain lions have pointed ears, African lions: round.)

"No, I didn't notice, I was too scared."

"Okay, how big was it?"

She pointed to the bottom of her kneecap.

Not an African lion, maybe a bobcat. If it had been an African lion, at that size, the poor little thing would have been terrified, not bold and aggressive, or even big enough to trap a woman in a car.

I called out into the woods, "Boys, put the 9 mils away, it's probably a bobcat!" I felt their relief, their beehive had been seriously rattled with this.

I continued to interview the woman.

I asked her what happened and she told me the whole story, barely able to hold it together.

To help her, I walked her outside so she could get some fresh air as she talked. As we were talking out there, she looked up to the road and her eyes became big and terrified. She pointed and said, "That's it! That's the African lion that trapped me!"

I looked up to the road and saw the animal sitting in the road, staring at us.

"Are you sure ma'am?"

Still pointing, "Yes! That's the African lion!"

"Um, ma'am, that's a dog."

Nobody so much as snickered, we all felt sorry for her.

The dog, although dun colored, was just sitting there wagging its tail, watching all the commotion from the side of the road.

Mystery solved.

Until next time,

Peace.