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Their eyes were lion to them.
A “lion-like creature” that sparked a full police investigation after it was seen wandering through the woods in Ireland turned out to be just a dog with a snazzy new haircut — and an ironic name, cops announced on Tuesday.
Locals in County Clare, located in western Ireland, thought that they were hallucinating when they spotted a shaggy, tan-colored creature with a lush mane and tufted tail padding through a wooded area.
For all intents and purposes, the creature looked like a lion from a distance.
Many in the sleepy countryside called in the bizarre sightings to the Gardaí, Ireland’s national police.
The agency launched an investigation on Oct. 29, but soon discovered that the culprit was a Newfoundland dog with a “fresh haircut” that gave it an uncanny resemblance to the fearsome king of the jungle.
“Gardaí from Killaloe have concluded that the recent video of a “lion like” animal roaming around the woods in East Clare is in fact the very friendly dog named ‘Mouse’,” the agency assured in a post on X.
Officers even stopped to pose with their furry suspect, who crowded close with its tail tucked between its legs, as if accepting guilt for the fright it mistakenly caused.
The Gardaí even posted a poll on its X account to see how many people truly believed Mouse was a lion, with roughly 27% answering in the affirmative.
Animal welfare advocates, though, struggled to see the humor in Mouse’s butchered grooming as they noted Newfoundland dogs don’t typically have their coats shaved — especially not down to the skin.
“Unless it’s for medical reasons, shaving a Newfoundland’s coat is generally not recommended. Their thick double coat helps regulate temperature and protects their skin. Removing it can lead to sunburn, overheating, and other health complications,” Siobhan McHaffie, the director of operations at the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, told BBC News.
McHaffie added that the society is “glad to see that Mouse is safe and is, in fact, not a roaming lion!”
Lions aren’t native to Ireland’s cool, rainy climate — nearly the exact opposite of the deserts they call home — and are only found in the island nation in captivity at larger zoos, like one in the heart of Dublin.
While Irish residents aren’t permitted to own or house large cats today, there was one lion tamer who kept her prized lioness in her Dublin home in 1951. It wound up escaping and mauled a teenager before it was put down by city police.
In August 2024, an unlucky keeper became trapped inside a pen filled with prowling lions at a zoo in Northern Ireland. The employee escaped unscathed and the Belfast City Council, which owns the zoo, launched an investigation.
