Grandpa wrestles a gator [PHOTO] to save dog. How far would you go to protect your pet? Would you fight off a hungry alligator? A Florida grandfather did just that to save his furry friend.

"I just knew that my best friend was going to be dead," Steve Gustafson told the Orlando Sentinel. "And I took off."

Gustafson was hanging out in his backyard of his home at The Villages, a retirement community near Orlando, while his 9-year-old West Highland terrier wandered close to the shore of a nearby pond.

That's when Gustafson said he heard Bounce yelp and saw the alligator carrying his dog away in its mouth.