Tracey Davis of Point Place willingly admits that she asked her husband to do yard work on Father's Day.
So when she spotted what appeared to be a small alligator look-alike staring at her in the garage yesterday, she assumed it was his try at scaring her for revenge.
But then she bent down to pick it up - and it moved.
"I flew out of the garage screaming," Mrs. Davis recalled. "It was really an alligator!"
And the creature's appearance wasn't her husband's doing, either.
It is illegal to own an alligator in Toledo.
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According to Tom Griesinger, owner of the Wildlife Unlimited animal retrieval operation, what Tracey and Jeff Davis had on their hands was a 5-pound, 35-inch-long alligator, probably about 3 years old and still too young for him to determine its sex.Because the alligator is not native to this area, Mr. Griesinger speculated that someone kept it as a pet and either let it go or it escaped. Mr. Griesinger added that it is illegal to own an alligator in Toledo.
After his wife's discovery, Mr. Davis came out to the garage and managed to "lasso" the alligator with their daughter's jump rope. He then placed it inside a small child's swimming pool in their backyard while Mrs. Davis called the police department, which dispatched Mr. Griesinger to remove it.
As the animal paddled about in the pool, the Davis' neighbors along 303rd Street came outside to check it out.
Far from being ferocious, the alligator is one of the most docile that Mr. Griesinger said he has encountered. He said he intends to keep the creature at his animal enclosure and use it to demonstrate why alligators should not be kept as pets.
The alligator will now go on a diet of goldfish. Well, mostly goldfish.
"I'll probably give him a mouse or two a week, and that will keep him happy," Mr. Griesinger said. Mr. Griesinger said his enclosure is outside Toledo, but he would not identify the location.
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