A cocker spaniel owes its life to a man who jumped into an alligator pool at a Czech zoo and rescued the dog from jaws of death, a Prague newspaper reported on on Thursday.
The drama happened on Tuesday while Michal Gubik and his girlfriend were walking their female dog at the zoo in Usti nad Labem, a city north of Prague, the Mlada fronta Dnes daily reported.
The unleashed dog jumped over a wall and into the pool inhabited by two North American alligators.
The girlfriend, Zuzana Vesela, said one of the reptiles was holding the dog’s tail when Gubik ”without thinking” leaped into the shallow water, grabbed the dog and scrambled to safety. The dog was bruised but will recover.
Zookeeper Jan Landa said Gubik was fortunate that old age and captivity have mellowed the alligators, which are about 30 and 15 years old.
”If anything like this happened in nature, the ending probably would not have been happy,” Landa said. — Sapa-DPA