'He's like having a big goofy dog in the house': 3-month-old Lion cub with rare disorder that cannot be released into the wild gets adopted by kind caretaker who brings him into her home and becomes his mom

Mariel Ruvinsky • Writer and Editor

Jul 29, 2025 9:00 AM EDT

Not all lions are born the same. Of course, they are all equally beautiful and meowgestic and purrfect, but… some are born different than others, and that means that those lions need us to step in and help. We would want every lion that is rescued to be released back into the wild - where they should be, but things don't always work out like that. Sometimes, lions are born with medical conditions that make releasing them into the wild an impossibility. These lions need to be given a second chance at life in a different way. These lions need humans to raise them and help them live their best lives.

This is unfortunately what happened to Lucious. He was born with a very rare condition that made releasing him into the wild impossible, but thankfully, he found himself in the best hands very early on. The woman who rescued him didn't do just that. She also adopted him, taking him into her home, raising him, loving him, and giving him the best chance at life that he could possibly have.

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via fox35orlando
Meet Lucious, everyone. He's a lion. He acts like a lion, eats like a lion, and weighs a a good 130 pounds, but he's not your every-day one-year-old cub. According to Fox35, Lucious has a genetic disorder that effects his motor skills and his ability to walk.
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"He has his days where he's barely wobbling at all, and then he has other days where he looks like a person with ms where he shakes," says Christin Burford, the founder of The Care Foundation, Florida. The foundation is an animal sanctuary. Burford's home is inside the sanctuary, and her home is where Lucious lives.
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In short, the disorder Lucious has causes his skull and brain to develop at different speeds. "It's basically pressing on the area of the brain that takes care of the motor skills, and in addition to that, some of the vertebrae in his neck are disfigured," Burford explained. "He's on steroids to help the swelling of the spinal cord. He gets high doses of vitamin A shots once a week, and as he grows, hopefully his skull will grow a little faster, so the pressure on the brain won't be as bad."
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via fox35orlando
Burford has known Lucious basically his whole life - since he was three months old. She is “the only mother Lucious has known,” and she has done an amazing job raising him and making sure that he's happy even though he's not allowed to interact with other lions. Soon, Lucious will be around 500 pounds, and he will have an outdoor enclosure on the property.
“He's like having a big goofy dog in the house,” Burford said. "He's like the perfect house lion if you ever heard of such a thing."
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