Russian Couple Share Their House With Full-Grown Mountain Lion

Original article on OddityCentral.com – a blog on oddities and wacky news http://www.odditycentral.com/

Aleksandr and Maria Dmitriev, a young couple from Penza, Russia, have been sharing their home with a mountain lion for the past three years.

Cats are in the top two most common pets worldwide, but the cat Aleksandr and Maria Dmitriev live with in their small one-bedroom apartment is a little different. Messi is a 3-year-old cougar, the second-largest feline in the Americas, after the Jaguar. In the wild, it is considered an apex predator, but Messi was born in a petting zoo and has spent most of his life as a house cat, so he basically behaves like an overgrown cat, for now. The Dmitriev’s are aware that Messi is a predator that will, at some point, test their strength to establish who is in charge of the house, but they have taken steps to keep his wild side in check.