AR-News: (KY) A wayward alligator gets reprieve, boot

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http://www.kypost.com/2003/10/09/gator100903.html

By Shelly Whitehead 
Post staff reporter

Judges see a lot of slimy characters in their courtrooms, often with tales of 
how animal instincts and primal urges somehow turned them against the law. 
Dundee, the wayward alligator of Florence, was no different. 
The instinctive urge for crawdads in nearby Utterback Creek prompted his July 
16 escape from his Florence home. And that escape is ultimately what landed 
his owner, Sandy Smith, in front of Boone District Judge Michael Collins 
Tuesday on a charge of harboring a wild animal. 
Smith, a laid-back 45-year-old self-employed contractor, has been a bit 
mystified by the whole ordeal. What was the big deal? So his toothy, 
three-foot-long American alligator took a quick jaunt across Rosetta Drive for a crustacean 
canape? Wild animal ordinance or not, Smith didn't see any harm in that. 
But a lot of other people did, particularly Boone County Animal Warden Becky 
Reiter, who is charged not only with enforcing local animal control laws, but 
often retrieving the wild "pets" of those who break such legal mandates. 
Tuesday afternoon, Reiter was among those at the Burlington courthouse where 
Dundee was finally getting his day in court. 
And, as it turns out, there's apparently a little scaly reptile in even the 
most warm-blooded judge, because Boone District Judge Collins gave Smith and 
Dundee a second chance at life as a couple -- as long as it was somewhere else. 
"He (Smith) agreed to get (the alligator) out of the county," Reiter said. 
"He's got property someplace that he's going to take it to. He's been given 
60 days to do that, and if there's another occurrence of the animal getting 
out, we will take immediate possession of it. But, if there are no other 
incidents, they'll dismiss the charges." 
Last month, Smith told The Post that he has vacation property on Lake 
Cumberland and has considered taking Dundee to that secluded south-central Kentucky 
vista. 
But after Tuesday's District Court meeting, Smith clammed up on his plans for 
Dundee's future. 
After his alligator's tale aired on television a while back, Smith got to 
thinking. Perhaps his little 'gator could be a money-maker. 
"It's gonna go down -- like a mystery, like 'Who shot J.R.?'" Smith said, 
recalling the craze over the killing of the lead character in the 1980 television 
drama, "Dallas." 
"This'll be 'Where's Dundee?' -- And we're going to let people bid on the 
story of it. -- Then whatever we get out of it, we'll use to build Dundee a 
home." 
So it's the county line for Dundee. 
"That's the thing that worries me at this point -- it's going to another 
community," Reiter said. 
"But then, maybe all this gave him the motivation to do the right thing." 
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