Featured on @StorylineReddit: November 28, 2025
It begins with a phone call and a sentence that doesn’t belong in an ordinary Tuesday: someone wants to give you a lion.
A real one. Six weeks old. Already paid for.
On the surface, it reads like internet folklore exotic animal permits, graduate students joking about “therapy lions,” comment threads spiraling into technicalities. But the humor thins quickly. Behind it sits something quieter: a family member who expresses care in outsized gestures, and another who is trying to build a life that depends on caution.
The cub never makes it to the apartment. The immediate crisis dissolves. Still, the air doesn’t quite settle. Because the real tension was never just about the animal it was about whether declining something extraordinary might register as rejection.
Sometimes refusal feels louder than acceptance.
The conflict centers on an offer that is technically generous but practically destabilizing. A doctoral student in psychology is told that her uncle may deliver a lion cub to her Kentucky apartment despite local restrictions, housing rules, and the professional scrutiny attached to her future licensure.
He operates in a world of auctions, permits, and large, improbable animals. She operates within institutional structures, exams, and regulatory boards. The tension emerges not from hostility but from mismatch. What he frames as opportunity, she experiences as exposure.
The potential consequences escalate before anything physically happens: legal violations, police involvement, word spreading quickly, a licensing board taking interest. The cub becomes a moving center of risk.
Then the situation contracts. A call is made. A boundary is stated plainly. The lion is redirected elsewhere.
No spectacle follows. The larger pattern, though, remains faintly visible.
Text Version
KY: SERIOUS: I may need to get rid of a lion
CONCLUDED
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/himynameisalex
KY: SERIOUS: I may need to get rid of a lion.
Originally posted to r/legaladvice r/AskReddit & r/bestoflegaladvice
TRIGGER WARNING: animal trafficking and private ownership of wild animals
MOOD SPOILER: Happy, absurd
KY: SERIOUS: I may need to get rid of a lion. Nov 1, 2016
I know this sounds crazy. It is crazy, but it is real. My uncle has owned multiple exotic animals in his time (a lion and a bear) and has a permit to own those animals in another state. A friend of his in this exotic animal world has had a litter of lion cubs and “owes [my uncle] a favor” and he wants to GIVE ME A LION. I don’t want a lion. I can’t have a lion. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to have one in Kentucky. He may have already paid for this lion, and he is serious and adamant I need to have this lion cub. I thought he was joking. He was not.
I am desperately hoping we can convince him how horrible of an idea it would be if he actually delivers the lion, but just in case, how do I get rid of a lion?! What would I be facing, legally, if I suddenly were in possession of one? What would happen to him if he were caught in Kentucky with the lion?
RELEVANT COMMENTS
Sorthum
I specialize in Dog Law, not Lion law.
That said: where on the Lion Scale (which ranges from “it’s a poodle with a lion cut” to “it’s an actual goddamned lion”) does this particular lion fall?
OOP
It’s an actual, six week old, god damned lion. He called it a “short-maned lion.”
Sorthum
Let’s talk Kentucky Lion Laws. (“Did you say ‘lemon laws?'” “No, I did not.”) > Unless you’re a zoo, a licensed preserve, or the lion serves a medical necessity (I would pay good money to see you take your Emotional Support Lion to work), you can’t have one. If you try to have one anyway, expect the local constabulary to be quite displeased with you.
OOP
Ha, I’m actually in graduate school getting a doctorate in Psychology, and one of my cohorts suggested training it to be a “therapy lion.”
Thing is, though, I don’t want the lion and am trying to not have one. My uncle has said he will drop the lion off (I believes he thinks when I see it I’ll fall head over heels for this dangerous, expensive creature). What happens if he does and I have to spend time trying to get rid of it? Word spreads quickly and WHEN the police find out soon after the fact what happens? A fine? Would they take the lion off my hands (please)?
advocate4
IANAL but a licensed psychologist.
If KY has caretaker laws like some states do, you should explain to your uncle that any criminal issues could make licensure an issue. Just a charge in some states will draw board scrutiny you don’t want. Letting him know this could hurt your career may be enough to dissuade him.
OOP
That is a fantastic point. Goodness knows I don’t want to put my license in jeopardy after (hopefully) passing the EPPP.
redditRW
Perhaps you could convince your Uncle to donate the lion to a zoo in your state? That way you could “visit it all the time.” (Well, he doesn’t have to know. He’s happy, your happy, zoo is happy. Win-win-win.
Regarding the “therapy lion”
Breakuptrain
“Mrs. Jones, i have good news and bad for you. The good first. little Johnny no longer suffers from fear of large mammals and will no longer wet the bad. The bad news, regrettably, is that our therapy lion unfortunately…”
More on the uncle
When my uncle had a bear he didn’t have a bite suit. It did try to kill him, though.
When asked to update
I will update hopefully with the news that he has decided to not go and get the cub from the guy. Wish me luck.
Lawyers of Reddit, what’s the stupidest case you’ve been asked to take on (and did you)? June 15, 2017 (7 months after OG post
[deleted]
Hey you. What happened to the lion man? We need to know
OOP
My mother called the uncle who had the lion (who is her brother) and told him in no uncertain terms that lions will not be welcomed. He has since discussed other, more legal but still exotic animals that he wants to give to me but hasn’t actually bought any like he did with the lion. Last I heard the lion was being donated or sold to a zoo. He won’t tell me much and I think it’s because he feels bad and awkward about it.
[deleted]
Thank you. I needed that follow up in my life.
OOP
No problem! I am glad to report there isn’t a lion at my home. Win/win.
AnneOnimiss
Do you want an exotic animal? I’m confused why he’s so stuck on giving you one. It didn’t sound like you wanted the lion, so why does he want to get you something else so bad?
OOP
I don’t want an animal. I have a cat (who is awesome) and I can only have one pet anyway in my current apartment, which is fine. He’s an impulsive person and has the ideology that life is an adventure and sometimes you need to do crazy things because you only have one life to live. I totally agree, but I also think those crazy things shouldn’t involve illegal and highly stressful situations…
I also think this is one way he shows love for family and friends. He’s very generous. I have had some weird pets in the past, like an axolotl, and I know he has enjoyed having his large pets so he probably wants me to also have that opportunity.
An update to “KY [serious] I may need to get rid of a lion.” June 15, 2017
OOP
My uncle is certainly eccentric and makes questionable decisions, but he’s in no way an asshole. He doesn’t do things out of malice, but is very kind and generous. In fact, the last time he bought a lion he got it from a large game auction and then organized getting it to a zoo, so saved its life. People aren’t perfect and, unfortunately, this issue only showed one aspect of him.
[deleted]
Relax man, we all know your uncle is both eccentric and awesome. The only thing you could do to convince us even more is some images of these exotic animals you talk about 🙂
OOP
Oh that’s a good idea. I’ll call and see if he has any. He just built a house so maybe he has them somewhere without having to dig.
Source
At first, the story moves with the rhythm of a joke. A six-week-old lion. A graduate student apartment. Someone suggesting it could double as a therapy animal. It’s almost cinematic in its absurdity.
Then the tone shifts. She begins listing consequences charges, fines, scrutiny from a licensing board. The vocabulary changes. So does the pace.
There is a quiet fracture between their orientations to risk. He treats life as something that should be expanded, tested, made interesting. She is building something that depends on steady accumulation: coursework, exams, professional credibility. The same gesture lands differently depending on which life you’re trying to protect.
The escalation doesn’t come from shouting or betrayal. It comes from logistics. If the cub is dropped off, what happens next? Police reports. Confiscation. A record that might follow her into rooms she hasn’t entered yet. The scenario widens outward neighbors noticing, administrators asking questions and it all unfolds before a single paw touches her floor.
Then it narrows, abruptly.
Her mother calls him. She says lions will not be welcomed.
That’s it. A sentence over the phone. No manifesto. No lecture about responsibility. Just a refusal stated out loud.
He stops discussing the cub’s destination in detail. He mentions other animals instead. The energy shifts but doesn’t disappear. The instinct to give something wild remains intact.
Some gifts arrive carrying more than excitement. That idea appears once here and then lingers without explanation.
He has saved animals before. He has organized zoo transfers. He is described as kind, generous, even admirable in certain ways. All of that stands alongside the pressure this created. Neither cancels the other.
In the end there is no lion in the apartment. There is a cat, coursework, an uncle building a new house somewhere. The boundary holds at least this time and the rest of it sits quietly in the background.