Barking dogs alert South Carolina woman to front-door visitor — a 5-foot alligator
Alligators are known to show up uninvited outside homes along the South Carolina coast, but rarely do they stand on the porch and stare through the storm door like Peeping Toms.
That happened Monday to a family living outside of Charleston, but the stranger part of the tale is the shameless gator was there 20 minutes before Robyn Schnessel spotted it, doorbell video revealed.
She was on a video call at the time.
“My two dogs, a Great Pyrenees and a Saint Pyrenees, started going crazy, so I popped out of my office to see what they were barking at and that was what I found,” Schnessel told McClatchy News. “The gator was literally knocking on the door with his face. ...It is crazy and scary and hilarious.”
A Nest doorbell video captured the moment, including Schnessel’s screams. However, the ruckus did not seem to bother the 5-foot alligator in the least. It just stood there, as if waiting for her to let it in.
“After a lot of screaming, I called DNR (the Department of Natural Resources) and the woman told me that they could come out but they would have to kill him. Or we could wait it out and he would likely leave,” she told McClatchy News.
“So we waited — from the safety of the house with the doors locked — for close to an hour. We watched him leave and come back, and then finally make it two houses down, where there is no fence and (he could) head out the back of their property.”
Schnessel, who lives in West Ashley, shared the story on a neighborhood Facebook page, hoping to alert others to the danger. She learned her neighbors had seen the alligator’s arrival via a main road, “and cars were swerving to miss him.”
“I have no idea where he is now!” she said. “It was definitely a bit disconcerting and not what I expected for my Monday. It is also very appropriate for 2020!”
Alligators grow to 13 feet and can live 60 years along the South Carolina coast, according to the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.
Dangerous encounters between alligators and humans are uncommon, but can be fatal. On May 1, a woman was killed by an alligator about 25 miles south of West Ashley on Kiawah Island, after she attempted to touch it, SCDNR officials said. The alligator was captured and killed, state officials said.
This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 10:04 AM with the headline "Barking dogs alert South Carolina woman to front-door visitor — a 5-foot alligator."