Man attacks alligator with pocketknife to save dog
By Associated Press
Published August 27, 2004
GAINESVILLE - A man stabbed a 6-foot alligator with a pocketknife after it grabbed his dog by the head, and managed to drive off the reptile.
Matthew Goff, 29, said he was walking his dog Sugar, a bloodhound-Shar-Pei mix, Wednesday evening at Kanapaha Park when the attack occurred.
Goff, an air conditioner repairman, said his dog, not on a leash, wandered to the edge of a pond, where the gator grabbed it.
Goff jumped in the water and stabbed the gator with his pocketknife, trying to get it to release his pet.
"It happened so quickly," Goff said. "I couldn't stand by and watch it happen, and I had the pocketknife so I decided to try and save her."
The gator released the dog when Goff stabbed it in the right eye. Sugar ran home, he said.
Goff said he dragged the gator closer to shore, shoved it as far as he could and then ran away - the pocketknife still lodged in the gator's eye.
Sugar escaped with three noticeable teeth marks on its left shoulder, one on its head and another on its right ear. Goff had a few scratches from his brawl with the gator.
"A lot of people walk their dogs at this park and let them swim in the water, but I don't think I'll ever walk her again without a leash," he said.
An alligator trapper with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission planned to try to kill the gator today.
