A wild story involving a Colorado mountain lion has gone viral online in recent days. The report involves a mountain lion that broke into a Colorado Springs pet store overnight in 2022, later said to be found during the ‘morning rush’ while it was asleep in the cat toy aisle and surrounded by catnip. Security camera footage is said to have captured it all.

Photos related to the story show a mountain lion browsing aisles in a store, then curled up on the floor by a small pile of crumbs. On the StoryTime Facebook page, alone, the post has been shared more than 50,000 times with more than 200,000 reactions.

It’s easy to see why the story has gone viral – an apex predator acting a bit like a household pet. Adorable, right…

Thankfully, Snopes is here to dispel the rumors, assigning a “False” rating to the story on September 19, 2025. Their analysis notes that no news coverage of the 2022 event exists, also noting that while an AI-detection tool didn’t flag images of the post as being artificially generated, other elements could be questioned. For example, the ‘pet store’ in photos from the story appears to be a convenience store snack aisle, with the same aisle with the same product placement appearing in footage of a 2018 robbery that took place in Canada.

With Snopes’ analysis coupled with some independent Internet browsing, this one does indeed appear to be another fabricated story that’s made its way to millions online.

Given the evidence at play, what’s your take? Think this story was faked?