A Florida woman got her Jackie Chan on when an alligator tried to make her dog a midnight snack.
Danie Wright, a longtime Land O’ Lakes resident, went toe-to-toe with a 5-foot alligator last week after the reptile lunged from a mossy creek and clamped down on her four-month-old puppy, Dax.
The walk started like any other—just Wright and Dax behind her home, strolling near the stagnant water where Florida’s lurking neighbors like to hide.
Then came the ambush. “I heard a squeal, and I got pulled,” Wright told local CBS affiliate, WTSP. “The alligator had him by his collar and dragged him, and I wasn’t gonna let go.”
What followed was a bare-handed brawl that could have ended much worse. Wright says she didn’t think twice before throwing punches straight at the predator.
“I just punched him, punched and punched,” she recalled. “I punched him in the eye enough that he kind of let go … but his teeth dragged down my arm.”
The good news: Dax escaped without injury, blissfully unaware of just how close he came to being alligator food. Wright, however, walked away with bite wounds on her arm that needed treatment.
Wildlife officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission later arrived, trapped the gator, and removed it from the property. A spokesperson confirmed the animal measured around five feet—young by gator standards, but still powerful enough to drag a dog and its owner into the water.
Wright, who’s lived in Florida for two decades, knows she’s lucky. “Just be careful with your dogs, you know these alligators are no joke,” she said. “I mean, 15 feet, he came out to get him, and I didn’t see him.”
Florida averages about eight unprovoked alligator attacks on humans each year, according to the FWC, with one fatality recorded in 2025. Attacks on pets, however, happen more often, since dogs are an easy target for gators lurking in ponds, canals, and backyards.