Firefighters aid canine
It was supposed to be a simple walk with his girlfriend’s dog, like he has done countless times before.
Up the street for a coffee, then back. Which is why Jeremiah Dominic didn’t think about bundling up before he left Friday. He figured he’d back in minutes.
Instead, he was left wondering if his girlfriend’s dog, a 50-kilogram Brazilian mastiff named Elvira, was going to die in front of him, in the cold.
“We just got back from the Tim Hortons on Portage Road ... and next thing you know she fell to the ground,” says Dominic. “I wasn’t expecting that, it came right out of the blue.
“And from there I couldn’t get her up.”
Since she was born, six-year-old Elvira has been susceptible to seizures. They happen infrequently, but are frightening when they do, as her large frame suddenly collapses and her strong legs start kicking. Dominic guesses her last episode was two years ago.
This one left him in a bind. He was about a block away from his house, unable to lift her. He left his cellphone at home. He felt helpless.
“She was right on the sidewalk,” he says. “And it was cold out. I didn’t have any gloves on ... I figured we were going out for a quick walk, I didn’t even dress warm enough for the weather.
“I didn’t know what to do. I sat on the ground with her, and hoped it would pass. Then I realized she wasn’t coming out of it.”
Then, a sight to warm his heart — about five members of Niagara Falls Fire Department. Dominic says they were in the vicinity of a nearby retirement living home and saw the commotion. They rushed over with a blanket and offered to help.
“They said, ‘We’ll get her in the truck.’ They rolled her onto a blanket, we lifted her up and put her in the truck. She was in the seizure even when I got her home. All that day. She was going off for another two or three hours.”
Without the lift home, Dominic can’t help but wonder how the day could have ended.
“I would have been out of luck,” he says. “I just want to thank them for their help. I think they literally saved the dog ’s life that day because I don’t know what would have happened if they weren’t there.”
Elvira has been getting extra attention since Friday. And Dominic has a newfound respect for the fire department.
“Sometimes we look at the negatives a lot in the community, we’re quick to point out what the police didn’t do, or the firemen didn’t do,” he says. “But it’s a good system, and people are out there to help you.
“We live in a good society that people would do something like that for you.”