You really have to be heedful when you ’re walking your dog near body of water in Florida !
Florida is an interesting position . Between the hotness and humidity and the body politic ’s natural flora and animal , Floridians are no stranger to hurricanes , sharks , alligators , and evenlizards falling from the sky . It ’s a lot .
But the most notable natural threat in Florida ( among so many , we might add ) are the state ’s alligator . While gator attacks on world and dog are n’t particularly common , your chance of getting nibbled on by a gator in Florida are never zero because the scaly buggers are everywhere .
Florida human race Mike McCoy and his 8 - month - onetime chocolateLabrador retrieverJake make up one of the most late cautionary gator tales , thanks to a walk by a pond behind Paul R. Smith Middle School in Holiday , Fla. McCoy and Jake were minding their own business concern , enjoying a leisurely stroll , when a gator that had been relaxing in the pond stag the distich and call back Jake looked like a tasty repast .
Moments like that are where our fight or flight instincts kick in and our adrenaline makes us opt for self preservation or conflict . And when McCoy hear his youthful pupper rupture up , he knew which directionhewas headed .
Rolling up his ( presumptively metaphoric ) sleeve , McCoy leap into the lack and grabbed the rolling alligator .
" I previously understand up on my environment and gator , " McCoy toldWFTS . " I got around , riff him [ in ] the eye , picked him out of the weewee so he could n’t get anywhere until he allow the domestic dog go . And in the interim he decide , I do n’t have him , I ’ll bite you . "
We do n’t know how McCoy summoned the strength to get by from the alligator , but we are happy to report that both homo and dog are alive and well with no more than a few stitches each as mementos of their harrowing experience .
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission is currently make for with a local trapper to remove the alligator from the pond and relocate it to someplace safer for both the gator and multitude and pet in the area . In the interim , the commissioncautions peopleto be aware of their surroundings , especially when around ponds , river , or wetland — even more so during the warm months when gators mate and younglings brood .
As for McCoy , while one can hope he ’s not actively look onward to his next gator scrap , he told WFTS that he ’d do it all over again if it meant saving Jake .
" No indisposition . It ’s just the fashion it is . "
