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NEW PORT RICHEY — Jake the beagle was the first to see the huge reptile lurking at the bottom of the backyard pool.
Thankfully Jake hadn't jumped into the water yet to cool off, like he normally does.
Instead, Jake barked up a storm, alerting his owners to the 10-foot alligator in the deep end.
"We have been here 20 years and have never seen anything like this," said Annemarie Donovan.
Her husband, Kenneth, had come home for lunch Tuesday at the couple's Crescent Forest home on Whispering Oaks Trail. He let Jake onto the screened pool deck — then came outside when he heard the commotion.
That's when he called his wife.
"He said, 'Hey where are you? There is an 8-foot alligator in the pool!' So I went home and there it was," Mrs. Donovan said. "There was a big hole in our screen where it had broken through to get in the pool."
The Donovans called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the agency sent out trapper Candy Moniz, who later measured the alligator at 10 feet.
"She was a woman, so we asked her if she could handle it, because it was big," Mrs. Donovan said.
An all-out battle between Moniz and alligator ensued, with the reptile thrashing, turning over in the water, and even chipping the pool's tile, Mrs. Donovan said. Once the exhausted trapper got the alligator out of the pool and around to the front of the house, a neighbor helped her tape its mouth shut.
"It was unbelievable. The alligator was hissing at that point. It was not happy," Mrs. Donovan said.
The Donovans are not sure what may have attracted the alligator to their pool, but their house abuts a large retention lake.
Just last week, Fish and Wildlife officials issued a public alert that alligators become more active this time of year, as the weather warms up. People should be especially vigilant at dawn and dusk. And they should never feed a gator, officials said.
Gators are often less than 4 feet long, and are not dangerous unless they are handled.
But the Donovans had a much bigger reptile on their hands. After the long struggle with the trapper, the alligator was loaded onto a truck and taken away. It will be put down under Fish and Wildlife's nuisance policy. The trapper then gets to sell the meat and pelt of the reptile.
The Donovans are still getting over the shock of what happened. And they are eager to repair the damage.
"We need to get that screen fixed," Mrs. Donovan said, "before a rattlesnake comes in."
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