In yet another story exemplifying why having a handgun with you is never a bad idea, a Florida man was forced to use his handgun to fight off a charging alligator and save his dog from the gator’s attack.
That story begins in Deltona, a town to the northwest of Orlando. There, a homeowner let Winston, his chocolate lab, out into the yard. Winston started sniffing around the yard and taking a particular interest in something. The homeowner, who wishes to remain anonymous, decided to take a closer look at whatever it was that Winston was taking an interest in. And that’s when he saw the nearly 8-foot-long alligator eying his furry friend.
It seemed that the monstrous reptile took notice of Winston just as the homeowner noticed it, and the two both lunged for the animal – the alligator poised to attack and the homeowner poised to attempt a rescue. The alligator won the race, seizing Winston by the skull and clamping down. Apparently, homeowners in Florida just walk around their homes packing, because the owner says he instantly fired four shots into the creature’s head.
“I don’t even think there was a thought,” the homeowner said. “I think it was – my heart just dropped, and I was like, ‘Okay, I have to go do something.’ So, I mean, you just spring into action and do what you have to do to save your dog. Twenty seconds later, probably would’ve had a dead dog.”
The homeowner says that despite the ferocity of the attack and the powerful jaws of the alligator, other than a good scare, the dog suffered only a punctured ear.
An officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was called to the scene and said that he believed the alligator made his way through a broken part of a perimeter fence. Speaking on that, he said:
“The game warden said that most likely because it’s breeding season – leading up to the alligator breeding season – a lot of the alligators are going to be out, and they’re going to be looking for potential mates.
“They’re going to be a little more aggressive, so if you live anywhere near water, just make sure that you’re checking your yard, because something like this can happen in a split second.”
This latest alligator incident is far from the only gator story to make it out of Florida in recent days. In another, a video emerged of a massive gator forcing its way through a fence by effortlessly bending the metal bars of the fence to squeeze through. Check that wild video out here:
FLORIDA GATOR VS METAL FENCE 🐊😳
Check out this big guy bend the bars and plow right through it this week in Placida. He eventually got through according to the @WINKNews viewer who shot the video. Only in #Florida! @GatorsDaily pic.twitter.com/3GCWtWhUnO— Matt Devitt (@MattDevittWINK) March 2, 2023
So the gators are active and more that a bit aggressive right now, not to mention fast as lighting and strong as the dinosaurs that they are. So if you live in Florida and want to avoid becoming a snack for the cretaceous creatures, keeping a firearm on you as you go about your business is far from a bad decision…
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