Pinocchio Rescues Alidoro, Who Later Saves Him from the Fisherman is a paired rescue episode in which a moment of compassion becomes the basis for reciprocal help. Pinocchio first risks his own safety to save Alidoro, the mastiff pursuing him; later, when Pinocchio is caught and about to be cooked by a fisherman, Alidoro recognizes him and carries him away. The reversal makes the episode’s moral principle concrete: a good deed can return through the very creature who once seemed to be an enemy.

The Pursuit and the Reversal

The first rescue grows out of Pinocchio’s attempt to escape the Carabinieri. Unable to catch him, they set a large mastiff after him, a dog celebrated for winning first prize in every dog race. The chase draws people to their windows and into the street, but a cloud of dust soon obscures the runners. Pinocchio is nearly caught: he can hear Alidoro panting just behind him and feel the heat of the dog’s breath. The nearby beach offers his last chance, and he leaps into the sea.

Alidoro cannot stop in time and plunges in after him. Unlike Pinocchio, he cannot swim; struggling to stay afloat only makes him sink farther. Once Pinocchio is safely beyond immediate danger, he initially rejects the dog’s desperate plea for help. Alidoro then begs him to save his life and promises not to trouble or pursue him again. The scene turns on a choice rather than an obligation: Pinocchio can leave his pursuer to drown, but the dog’s helplessness changes the terms of their encounter.

Pinocchio Saves Alidoro

Pinocchio takes pity on Alidoro and remembers Geppetto’s repeated advice that performing a good deed never brings a loss. He swims back, grasps the mastiff by the tail with both hands, and brings him safely onto the dry sand. Alidoro has swallowed so much seawater that he is swollen like a balloon and can scarcely stand. Pinocchio does not linger to accept his thanks or trust that the danger has ended. Instead, he returns to the water and swims away from shore, telling Alidoro farewell and wishing him a safe journey home.

That cautious departure preserves the original imbalance between them: Alidoro had been sent to catch Pinocchio, and his promise not to pursue him does not make Pinocchio forget why they were on the beach. Yet Pinocchio’s action has already broken the chase’s simple pattern of hunter and fugitive. In choosing to save the dog who had nearly caught him, he acts on Geppetto’s counsel even when doing so offers no immediate advantage.

The Fisherman’s Net

Still swimming close to land, Pinocchio eventually reaches what seems a safe place. On the rocks he spots a cave with a long plume of smoke, assumes there must be a fire inside, and hopes to dry and warm himself there. As he approaches the cliff to climb out, something rises beneath the water and lifts him into the air. He finds himself trapped in a large net among fish of many shapes and sizes, all struggling inside the mesh.

The fisherman who hauls in the net looks like a sea monster: he has a thick mass of green grass in place of hair, green skin, green eyes, and a long green beard, and he resembles a large lizard standing upright. Pinocchio asks to be released so that he can return home, but the fisherman treats him as a rare catch, a puppet-fish worth frying with the rest. Pinocchio weeps and cries out that he should have gone to school and that he is paying for having listened to his companions. His regret connects the immediate peril to the choices that have led him away from the safer course he now wishes he had followed.

As Pinocchio struggles to escape, the fisherman binds his hands and feet with a strip of rush and throws him into a basin with the other fish. He then dredges the catch in flour and fries it in a pan. Pinocchio’s danger is not merely a threat: the fisherman is preparing the meal, and Pinocchio, already covered in flour, is next to be thrown into the pan.

Alidoro Repays the Rescue

At that moment Alidoro enters the cave, drawn there by the appetizing smell of frying. The starving dog seems to ask for a morsel through his whining and wagging tail, but the fisherman drives him off while still holding Pinocchio. Pinocchio calls for Alidoro by name and pleads to be saved. Alidoro recognizes the voice coming from the flour-covered bundle, then springs forward, takes the bundle gently in his teeth, and runs out of the cave.

The fisherman is furious at losing the catch he had intended to eat and tries to pursue the dog, but a fit of coughing forces him to turn back after only a few steps. Alidoro finds the path to the village, stops, and sets Pinocchio carefully on the ground. The rescue thus reverses their first encounter: the dog who once chased Pinocchio now protects him, while Pinocchio, formerly the one able to swim and escape, is helpless until Alidoro acts.

Reciprocity and Significance

Pinocchio thanks Alidoro, who answers that no thanks are necessary: Pinocchio saved him, and now the deed has been returned; in the world, everyone should help one another. Alidoro explains that he had been lying on the beach, nearly dead, when the wind carried him the smell of frying and stirred his appetite. That scent led him to the cave, where he heard Pinocchio’s voice. His rescue is therefore both a deliberate recognition of Pinocchio and the consequence of an accidental trail that brought him to the right place.

The episode gives Geppetto’s remembered lesson a plot-level consequence. Pinocchio’s compassion did not secure an instant reward: after saving Alidoro, he swims on and is caught in a separate danger. Only later does the saved dog return the help, when recognition and action matter more than the fisherman’s possession of his captive. Their exchange turns a chase into an alliance founded on conduct rather than prior trust. The paired reversals—pursuer becoming rescued, then rescuer becoming captive—make mutual aid the episode’s decisive outcome.