Collars Signal Dogs' Killer -- Hounds' Barking Was Dinner Bell For Florida Alligator, But His Purebred Tastes Eventually Gave Him Away

PENSACOLA, Fla. - For the past 20 years, hunting dogs have been disappearing in the Blackwater River State Forest. Their owners thought people were stealing them.

The thief, it turns out, was a 500-pound alligator that turned a game trail into his private diner. He would grab dogs as they ran across Coldwater Creek in pursuit of foxes or deer.

Their barking apparently was his dinner bell. At least six hunting dogs met their fate in the alligator's jaws.

One of the final victims was Flojo, Rufus Godwin's $5,000 Walker fox-hunting hound. The dog disappeared a few weeks ago in the forest about 45 miles northeast of Pensacola.

Four days later, Godwin was using a tracking device to search for Flojo's electronic collar when he caught a faint signal. The beeps were weak until he pointed his receiver at a deep swamp hole.

Jamie Sauls, who was with Godwin, also received signals from a collar worn by a dog he had last seen several weeks earlier.

"When we walked up to this hole, just all of a sudden the boxes went to beeping out of sight. They just went wide open," Godwin recalled yesterday in a telephone interview from his home in Chumuckla. "So we knew then we were dealing with a gator."

The 10-foot, 11-inch reptile was captured Aug. 15 by state-contracted alligator hunters.

Four men harpooned the alligator, taped its mouth shut and wrestled it until they had it tied up. During the struggle the alligator spit up Flojo's $125 tracking collar. Later, after the animal was killed, the gator hunters slit open the belly.

In its belly was a collection of dog collars, including Flojo's flea collar. Another collar was from a dog that belonged to Aden Fleming, who lives near the swamp. That dog disappeared 14 years ago.

The alligator, which was sold to a processing facility, was estimated to be 50 years old.

The trappers hired by the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, David Smith and Lonnie Stone, had an easy job finding the alligator, thanks to the electronic tracking equipment.

"I wish I could get all of them to swallow one - of course, without the dog," Stone said.

The alligator's home was a quarter-mile from a popular swimming hole on the Blackwater River. If not for the steady diet of dogs, the alligator might have tried to lunch on children, Godwin said.

Lt. Stan Kirkland of the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission said 4,632 alligators reported as nuisances were killed in Florida last year.

"It's morbid in one sense to find out your dog or pet wound up being food for an alligator, but that's the reality of it," he said.