A Florida man saved his neighbor’s dog from an alligator by throwing a rock and a brick at it.

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Bill Read, a fishing guide and Lakeland city commissioner, was cleaning his yard after Hurricane Irma when he saw ripples in the lake behind his home, according to Tampa Bay Online.

Read, 69, spotted his neighbor’s chocolate Labrador named Dixie unknowingly swimming in the water with an alligator. He tried to get the dog’s attention, but it didn’t work, Tampa Bay Online reported.

Right before Read’s eyes, the dog was pulled underwater as the gator wrapped its jaws around Dixie’s midsection. Seconds later Dixie emerged, but so did the gator, according to Tampa Bay Online.

That’s when Read threw the rock at the reptile’s side and then a brick at its head, causing the alligator to swim away, Tampa Bay Online reported.

“I had to compose myself; it was kind of emotional,” Read told Tampa Bay Online.

Dixie came out of the water bleeding. She had two puncture wounds on her side and has to wear a plastic cone for a while. However, she will be OK, Tampa Bay Online reported.

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Fulton DA Fani Willis (center) with Nathan J. Wade (right), the special prosecutor she hired to manage the Trump case and had a romantic relationship with, at a news conference announcing charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others in Atlanta, Aug. 14, 2023. Georgia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, upheld an appeals court's decision to disqualify Willis from the election interference case against Trump and his allies. (Kenny Holston/New York Times)

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