PANICKED and disbelieving calls to the Local Police in Molina de Segura (Murcia) claimed a loose lion was wandering about in a country lane just outside the town.
Numerous residents reported a wild feline roaming around near farm fields, and wondered if he had escaped from a zoo, although could not figure out how he could have travelled so far on his own feet.
The nearest safari park – Terra Natura Murcia – is in Espinardo, which is just under eight kilometres away, so it would have been feasible, although the lion would have been very fortunate to avoid the main N-301 highway and A-7 motorway altogether and survive either.
In fact, there had been no sightings of a big cat on either road.
The lion was definitely a 'he', said callers who saw the sandy-coloured creature – he had a huge mane and short body hair.
Local Police took all the usual precautions before going out to investigate – contacting vets and specialist wild animal-handlers so that if the lion became aggressive, he could be humanely stunned, rendering him temporarily unconscious until he could be moved to safety.
They went out to search before calling in the experts – which was fortunate, because the 'lion', when finally seen, turned out to be a large dog.
The Local Police photograph (above) shows the dog from the side and reveals how he could easily have been mistaken for a lion – but another picture officers posted on Twitter showed him from the front, and makes it clear that he was more canine than feline.
They PhotoShopped a speech bubble into the second picture, coming from the dog's mouth and reading, “No worries, officer. Woof, woof.”
Meanwhile, they arranged to have his microchip read so they could contact his owner.
The dog was indeed chipped, which tells police he is not a stray, is probably properly cared for and had wandered off from an owner who was likely to be starting to worry about where his or her pet was.
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