Family's dog ‘Zeus' dragged into Florida pond by massive alligator and miraculously comes out alive: ‘I don't know how he survived'

New York Post

20 hours ago

A family dog named Zeus summoned the strength of his namesake and managed to escape the literal jaws of death when an alligator dragged him from his backyard into a nearby pond, the dog's owners said.
'The vet told us the gator had just missed his jugular — it looked like Zeus's entire head had been in the gator's mouth. The fact that he made it out alive is nothing short of a miracle,' the family wrote in a GoFundMe post.
Even the vet said, ''I don't know how he survived,'' the family added.
3 Zeus, a German Shepherd who survived a gator attack, wears the cone of shame while he recovers.
GoFundMe
Zeus, a German Shepherd, heard a noise on the night of June 2 and scooted through his doggie door out of his home in Wesley Chapel, Fla., to investigate, the family said.
In an instant, an alligator came crashing through their backyard fence, snatched Zeus and dragged him to a pond, they said.
'My dad came in frantic. I'd never seen him like that. He's a tough guy. He said, 'The alligator just took Zeus,'' Zeus' owner Susan Alkhatib told WFLA.
The family watched in horror as Zeus struggled while the alligator thrashed with the German Shepherd's head in its mouth.
Finally, Zeus managed to escape the beast and the alligator swam off.
3 The alligator that attacked Zeus has managed to elude trappers on the hunt for him.
GoFundMe
'The alligator had just let go of Zeus,' Alkhatib told WFLA. 'We started yelling at him to come toward us. When he got closer, he got tired. So we had to kind of go into the pond a little bit to get him.'
Susan's mom waded into the pond and grabbed the battered pet and they rushed him to a veterinarian hospital for an emergency surgery.
After the attack, Alkhatib said they don't feel as safe at home anymore.
'We have a doggy door, and Zeus will go in and out of it whenever he wants,' Alkhatib said. 'We have it covered right now because of what happened.'
The family had taken a video of the scaly culprit earlier in the day when the gator had been lurking along the banks of the water.
The family told WFLA that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has sent out trappers, but so far, the guilty gator has avoided capture.
3 Zeus suffered a broken jaw and underwent surgery after an alligator attacked him and dragged him into a pond near his home in Florida.
GoFundMe
Meanwhile, Zeus is slowly but surely recovering, according to the family. He sustained a fractured jaw, puncture wounds, and the vet needed to manually realign his jaw and wire it together.
He's on a liquid diet fed to him with a syringe until he has another surgery in about 8 weeks. He'll also need to wear a muzzle for at least another month.
A picture of the recovering miracle pup shows him post-surgery with his wounds around his neck and face, with much of his fur shaved off from the surgery.
'Despite it all, Zeus continues to be such a trooper,' the family wrote in a recent update on GoFundMe. 'He's getting tons of love, snuggles, and care.'