Naples is glamorous--till you step on a gator

I haven't stepped on one (yet), but they're everywhere. This bunch (pack? herd? den?) of foot-long baby gators lives in the lagoon next to the condo where I'm dog-sitting. Omitted from the shot: six-foot-long Mom standing guard. Oh yeah. There's another six-foot-long gator around here, too. Presumably Papa. And we have several yard-long "teen" gators. Maybe it's a good thing Scruffy mostly rides in his stroller.

Today a friendly resident told me that at least one toy poodle from the condo has met his end in a gator's jaws. Sadly, the poodle's owner let him run off-leash--and that was the last thing the poodle ever did. The alligator lunged from the water and snatched the dog, whereupon the owner drew his 45 and blasted the gator to bits. When he was subsequently fined $5,000, the poodle's owner insisted that his dog had been worth every penny. Alas, he didn't get his dog back. Few people in such a situation do.