Alligator resting on front porch startles Texas family leaving for swimming practice

For a family in Cinco Ranch, Texas, a trip to swimming practice was more like a trip to the zoo.

The Pereira family was about to leave their home for swimming practice when something stopped them in their tracks, KHOU reported.

The unexpected guest? An alligator.

“(I) was going to open the door and I kept looking and saw a foot and said, ‘Wait a minute. That’s a gator,” Alistair Pereira said, according to KRTK.

The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office posted a photo of the gator to Twitter and said they returned it back to the wild, but not before reminding area residents to keep their pets on leashes.

“Deputies helped this big boy find his way home after he wandered onto a porch,” the sheriff’s office wrote.