South Floridians are used to dealing with nuisance alligators gobbling up house pets, but it looks like we have a Lake Placid situation on our hands.
A Coral Gables neighborhood is on high alert after a Jack Russell Terrier was killed and eaten Tuesday by a crocodile living in a nearby canal.
A crocodile sighting is extremely rare in urban areas because most of the remaining 1,000 in the U.S. live in the Everglades.
The dog, Lucas, was being walked by its owner when it broke free from a leash and wandered too close to the canal near the Biltmore Golf Course. That's when the ambush predator struck, pulling the dog under the water in front of its horrified owners.
The crocodile swam around with the 25-pound dog in its powerful jaws, thrashing it against the water, before swallowing it.
"When he went up again with the head of my dog in his mouth, and he was swimming all over the canal with my dog in his mouth, man, I can't believe it," Lucas' owner, Wadi Romano, told CBS4.
It's unclear how the crocodile might have wandered so far inland and trappers have had no success tracking down the animal.
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Because the crocodile is an endangered species, the dangerous reptile cannot be killed.
