We love our dogs and we will do anything to keep them safe. That same predicament fell on a south Florida man who had to save his dog from an alligator.

74-year-old Richard Willbanks rushed into a lake, grabbed a gator that ran off with his beloved 3-month old King Charles spaniel puppy in its jaws, and pried its mouth open for the rescue. Willbanks with a cigar still in his mouth, got in the water, and saved his puppy Gunner while enduring gator bites himself. The entire scene was captured on a random camera ran by the Florida Wildlife Foundation. CNN interviewed Willbanks with a sleepy Gunner in his lap about the entire ordeal and how he stepped in for man’s best friend and proved he is a hero.

This is a very Florida story but not the one we are used to.