BLOGGING FROM A TO Z APRIL 2013 – LETTER “L”

LIONS

Old Flag of Scotland

I love cats; all of them. Big and small. We have a little housecat, and she adopted us. I adore the big ones; tigers most of all. But, lions I find to be the most ingratiating and companionable of the class 4 cats. Probably because they do live in families. I've also witnessed some behavior that is hard to credit and I am not sure you would see this in tigers, loners that they are. But lions seem to have long memories and gratitude towards their early care-givers. I know there was a recent incident where a young woman died caring for a lion, but that was an anomaly, I believe. That was only 2^nd fatality in over 20 years, regarding a lion and a human in the U.S.

I love looking at their facial expressions; each one is different...

First off there is the story of Christian the lion, who lived in London, I believe and was raised as a cub by two brothers who ran some sort of clothing house back in the 60s. He slept in a dresser drawer and went about with the brothers. Eventually, he became too big to hang out with them, so they took him to a reserve in Africa where he was taught to hunt and off he went. Some time passed, and the brothers went back to see him. Christian remembered his friends and they had a wonderful reunion. Christian brought his wives to meet his London friends. They were not quite are enthusiastic about Christian's friends, but they didn't eat his friends, so all was good.

Then there is the lady, Ana Torres in Columbia who rescued a lion from a traveling circus. The woman continues to care for him and other animals that have suffered abuse, and starvation. In this video, the lions hugs her and just seems so happy and grateful towards his rescuer. Beautiful animals all, I wish they could stay in the wild.

Once, when we lived in San Diego, we all went to the San Diego Zoo. You could get pretty close to the lions. My poor dad, every time we went to the zoo, something would spit, bite, or get bodily fluids on him. This time, a male lion backed right up to the fence and sprayed him. It smelled like a billion polecats had just cut loose. Poor Daddy, he had to do the rest of the Zoo that way. My uncle teased him unmercifully. When we got home, my mom let the dogs out. They ran to greet Daddy, got one whiff, made a U-turn and ran back to the house ki-yi-ing all the way. Still, that was better than the time he got bitten by the camel and the koala bear!