What once was a part of the beautiful landscape of living out in the Glades has now turned into a water worry for one Pembroke Pines resident.
“I think they’re beautiful. They’re in their natural habitat. You know, we came here, not the other way around,” Gwen Cash said. “I don’t think they’re beautiful when they’re trying to eat my dog.”
Cash said she was injured on New Year’s Eve while trying to protect her dog from an alligator.
“We weren’t out here that long, and he was like right there,” Cash said, saying the encounter happened within 5 minutes of her taking the dog outside. “I scanned the whole lake and that quick, he was right there.”
Cash said the alligator turned and appeared to be going for her Rottweiler Maximus’ throat.
“I was trying to put my arm around my dog’s chest, and that’s how I got scratched or whatever,” Cash said. “I’m glad he didn’t close his mouth.”
She was eventually able to get Maximus back inside but the run-in with the reptile left her bloody bruised and now scared.
“The fact that he’s not scared worries me,” Cash said.
She said she thinks someone might have been feeding the alligator.
“When you start feeding them, they look at you and they think of food and that’s the only thing I can think is why he comes straight up,” Cash said. “Either that or he wants to get my dog.”
Cash said she’s now concerned for herself, her dog – and the families living along Holly Lake.
“Hey, if not my dog, somebody’s little kid could be playing,” she said.