By Grant Olsen

LIZARDVILLE — When I was a young child, we lived on a dirt road in an area surrounded by foothills, orchards and fields. There were lots of wild animals traipsing around, which would become more obvious if we let one of our cats out after the sun went down.

It would go something like this: The cat would be scratching at the back door, indicating it wanted to go run around outside and take a bathroom break in our sandbox (yeah, it was always risky digging around in there). We'd open the door and the cat would head out into the night. About 10 minutes later, we'd hear screeching sounds and the cat would rush back to the house, followed by an angry skunk and a cloud of stinky spray.

Over the years, our cats tangled with raccoons, skunks and all manner of creatures. But unlike the cat in this video, they never had any run-ins with monitor lizards.

Oddly enough, there was actually a monitor lizard running rampant in my town during the summer of 1994. The owners had carelessly left their back door open and the 4-foot-long reptile, which was often allowed to roam freely around the house, made a break for it.

Nobody heard from the massive lizard for a few weeks. Then a local family was riding their horses on a trail just outside of town when the creature jumped out of the trees and started hissing at them. Needless to say, the children were traumatized and probably had lizard-filled nightmares for years to come.

The renegade lizard made a few other appearances that summer and fall. He chased someone near the fishing pond and hissed from bushes as some senior citizens were out for a morning walk. But, bless his little lizard heart, he never messed with my cats. And I'll always be grateful for that.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50784275/have-you-seen-this-cat-escapes-hungry-lizard