Nero, a 10-year old Newfoundland, who played a key role in the rescue of two of Eliseo family members before perishing in a Nov. 24 fire on Wildwood Street along with three other dogs, will have a memorial on Saturday, Dec. 14 at St. Elizabeth Ann Seaton Church in Shrub Oak at noon. The public is invited to intend, according to the family.
Bandit, a 1-year-old Huskie mix; Buddy, a 4-year old chiweenie; and Roxie, an 8-year old English bulldog, also died in the fire and will be memorialized Saturday. Guilio Eliseo, the patriarch of the family, said Nero was like a son to him.
Nero saved the life of Eliseo's daughter, Marie, and wife, Maria, when he began barking and howling, waking up Marie as she slept on the couch.
"It was a very serious howl," Marie Eliseo said last week. "He woke me up before the alarm went off. By the time the alarm went off, the flames were over where I was sleeping. If it wasn't for Nero, I wouldn't be here."
She escaped the house, and quick-thinking neighbors Brian Avery, Robert Castro and Joshua Reed saved her mother, who recently underwent hip replacement surgery, from the roof of their porch using a 20-foot ladder.
Sightings of Nero had been reported all over Yorktown and Cortlandt, though he was found in the rubble of the home.
The family is living with cousins in Somers and recently rented a condominium in Mohegan Lake, Guilio Eliseo said.
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