Gator kills Rottweiler in canal waters

[H-B]

Gator kills Rottweiler in canal waters

The alligator devoured and mutilated the 120-pound dog, who loved the water.

By SHANNON TAN
© St. Petersburg Times


CLEARWATER - Cash loved chasing bubbles.

The playful Rottweiler would frolic in the water for hours, pawing at the bubbles in the Cross Bayou Canal near U.S. 19 and Ulmerton Road.

He probably was playing when a 10-foot alligator sneaked up on him Sunday evening.

Bob Deegan heard a scream. He thought it was Cash.

He ran toward the sound and saw his other Rottweiler, Charles, standing in the water.

"I asked him: "What's going on? Where's Cash?"' said Deegan, president of a tree business called Belleair Palms.

Deegan searched for his 4-year-old dog till midnight. The next day, he saw a gator looking at him through the mangroves.

Then he found Cash's body under the mangroves. The dog, which weighed 120 pounds, had only one limb left.

Deegan's wife, Sharon, called the police. Then the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. She was told they would get back to her in three to five days.

She called again. And again. Finally, she was referred to Animal Capture of Florida, a company that holds a permit to trap nuisance gators.

She said the person she spoke to there told her: "I've got 40 calls in front of you."

He said he would call me when he was in the area, Sharon Deegan recalled. "I didn't think that was an appropriate response," she said.

Her husband used to swim there. Children live in a mobile home park nearby.

Eventually, she was told a trapper would come Friday. She never saw him. He had an emergency call, he told her, and had to leave.

"I was there; I didn't see the gator," said Tom Mullen with Animal Capture of Florida. "We can't spend an entire day on every call."

Gary Morse, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, said the agency has received more than 100 gator calls a day in the 12-county area that includes Pinellas. The reasons: warm weather and rain.

Morse said they received the Deegans' complaint on Monday and notified the trapper Tuesday.

"This is not an emergency, so it takes less of a priority than (a gator) near children at a bus stop," he said.

The area where Cash disappeared is in the 5000 block of 126th Ave. N, where Bob Deegan stores palms for his landscaping business. That's where the dog is buried now.

"Cash had an inner peace. He was never violent," Bob Deegan said. "Whenever you'd raise your voice, he'd leave the room."

Deegan said his only consolation is that Cash died quickly.

"As hard as it is, it's nature," he said.