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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — If there's one place to avoid while on the lam in a zoo it's the tiger pit. One stray dog learned that lesson the hard way and was recovering Wednesday from puncture wounds to its neck and shoulders.

"This is one lucky animal," Memphis Zoo spokesman Brian Carter said of the dog.

The 50-pound female retriever mix darted inside a service entrance to the zoo on Tuesday and led workers on a brief chase before it bolted over a 4-foot-high visitors railing and a retaining wall at the tiger exhibit.

She swam across a 12-foot-wide moat to the interior of the exhibit and was quickly attacked by a 225-pound female Sumatran tiger. The open exhibit's main walls are 18 feet high.

"The exhibit is designed to keep the animals from getting out but not for keeping animals from getting in," zoo spokesman Brian Carter said. "You can jump off a cliff but you can't jump up a cliff."

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