Deputies in Pike County, Ohio, get a 911 call about an animal chasing cars near Wakefield. That’s a little town in southern Ohio close to Cincinnati.

Animal nuisance calls are not unusual, so dispatchers broadcast the complaint to deputies in the area. Turns out the call is legitimate. Cars are being chased by an animal. Although the animal is very large!

The deputy answering the call reports that he’ll be out of the car momentarily to contact the pet’s owner. The owner is Terry who lives not far away, and the pet, whose name is Lambert, got out of his pen a few hours ago. Terry is trying to recapture Lambert — but that’s easier said than done.

Meanwhile, there are a half dozen drivers on the verge of panic as Lambert chases them (albeit playfully) along U.S. 23. Lambert is rather large. He weighs 550 pounds. That’s a bigger pet than you’d want to wrestle with, especially given Lambert’s set of teeth and claws.

You got that right! Lambert is certainly no dog — he’s an African lion. Lambert is running alongside cars, occasionally pawing at them, as frightened motorists call police on their cell phones to report they’re being attacked by a lion.

Vicki, who is Terry’s wife and co-owner of Lambert, says the lion is tame as a house kitty. That may be true, but unless you know Lambert personally that might be a little hard to believe.

You’ve got to wonder what a 550 pound lion is doing running loose, chasing cars in a suburb near a city the size of Cincinnati. Turns out there’s no law prohibiting the ownership of exotic or wild animals in the state of Ohio.

While that may be true at this moment, by the time you read this column, things may change. There’s a bill now in committee in the Ohio House of Representatives that calls for regulation of private ownership of exotic or wild animals.

Maybe Terry and Vicki will buy little car toys to put in Lambert’s pen for Christmas?