In Memory of Nathanial

You didn’t know him. We barely did. But we will never forget him.

His name was Nathaniel, and he somehow ended up at Fulton County Animal Services last week. He was a “blind senior wirey JRT,” very sweet with a cut on his foot. He was not eligible for adoption or foster. Only a rescue could save him. They posted him on Christmas Eve, and the shelter’s volunteers worked tirelessly to network him before his time was up.

We saw him and you know how that story goes … We have a huge place in our (financially-bankrupt) hearts for guys and gals like him. We weren’t really in a position to take on another senior, much less a blind one, but we couldn’t stand the thought of him dying in that shelter alone without humans around to assure him everything was OK.

His time was up on the 29th (a Sunday), so we knew we had to act fast. With Mama Donna’s approval,  one of our volunteers pulled him on Saturday morning and rushed him straight to the vet. He was very distressed and anxious and couldn’t breathe properly. We shot some video of his “freedom ride,” but decided, in hindsight, it was just too disturbing to share because he was having such a hard time breathing.

Our vet did a thorough evaluation and found numerous health issues. He had extensive neurological/nerve damage, which was the cause of his difficult breathing; had an enlarged heart with a heart murmur; rotting teeth; kidney issues; and, on top of his blindness, he was also deaf. All of these factors were contributing to his anxiety and making things worse and, unfortunately, the prognosis was not good.

We told our vet to do whatever he could to make him comfortable, even if it meant we would only have a few days or weeks with him. We wanted him to know what it felt like to be loved and cared for, just as we did for Chloe, Skip and many seniors and/or special-needs dogs before them.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be this time.

Our vet assured us that most compassionate thing we could do for this sweet boy was to let him go; to help him cross to the Rainbow Bridge. We hate letting go without a fight, but we also believe in giving every Jack his or her dignity and, most importantly, never letting any sweetheart with an incurable diagnosis suffer under any circumstance.

So we said goodbye to this sweet old man whom we had only known for a few hours but felt like we had for a lifetime. Our wonderful Dorien built him a special box, and he was laid to rest at the rescue next to Chloe.

Rest in peace, sweetheart. We honor you and your memory and wish we could have gotten to know you better and spoil you in your final days.

And, yes, as heartbreaking as this has been, we can, with confidence, say this: He passed surrounded by humans who  assured him everything would be OK.

And we know everything is OK.

We are not really asking for anything for Nathaniel. We were “happy” to pull him and intended to do everything we could to save him. We have just heard some volunteers of the shelter are asking what happened and where they can send donations,  so we wanted to provide them with that information.

If you would like to donate in his memory, you can use our general donations page and put that it’s in Memory of Nathaniel in the special notes. We will use this to cover his euthanasia and any extra to help our own senior/special needs dogs in the sanctuary.

“The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief. But the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love.” – Hilary Stanton Zunin