Trident's Story

Erik, the oldest of 4 children, has been the director of the NEVER QUIT message his father left him. His tireless efforts constantly kept all that know him, captivated and energized, and his vision is always focused on helping others and educating them as to how to avoid what happened to his amazing father.

After his father, Gerard, suffered a stroke and brain bleed, many doubted that he would be capable of making any positive progress. Fast forward 2 ½ years and due to Gerard’s go get-um attitude and the eternal optimism and drive of Erik and his family, the remarkable progress just kept coming. The two words, NEVER QUIT, perfectly describe the every day life and attitude of Gerard, his wife Reidunn, and children, Karina, Sonya, Paul and Erik. Of all the amazing roles that Erik has enjoyed, he has treasured most spending time with his parents and traveling around the world. He thrived being around his driven and dynamic father prior to his stroke, and also how driven and loving his father was once he came out of his coma. Erik was able to have 3 years and 3 months by his fathers side in his recovery after his brain bleed in May 2006, until his father moved Home December 31, 2009 after his final brain bleed December 31, 2009. It was during this time that Erik learned the most in life, learning so much from his father, even when it was difficult for his father to communicate to Erik. This is when the Never Quit message was brought to a large audience, so that all could learn to avoid hypertension, get active and take on their own Never Quit message.

This is how we found Trident. (He was named after an event that we have at NEVER QUIT http://neverquitnever.com...Called the TRIDENT: http://neverquitnever.com/trident/

The TRIDENT is an event that has a run, swim & paddle and since it has 3 legs to it, and this dog that was found was walking on 3 legs, when we asked everyone on the "Never Quit Never" page on Facebok what they would like to name him, the Never Quit family decided to name him.... TRIDENT.

Here is the rest of the story: We were driving back from a military base Friday night to talk about future free events for the troops in Afghanistan, and we pulled over to get gas and there was a dog in the rain, limping. Our hearts broke for him. We gave him all of our food and he would reluctantly come to eat it when I got far enough away from him. He would not come up to me so I finally sat in the rain and hoped he would come up to me, and an hour later he did. We just spent time together in the rain where I scratched his head. He was very thin, tail between his leg as if he was just fearful. (Wow, the memories are flowing back)

The police officer who we called came and said he had seen this dog for the past few months on the road. With that info, and no emergency locations to help him, I took off my clothes to dry him off, make him a bed with my clothes (kept my underwear) and we drove back to Jacksonville. He seemed very grateful.

We took him to the emergency room and got x-rays which shows an old dislocated hip, maybe from being hit by a car. He was covered in fleas and ticks.

Since bringing him back to Jacksonville on Saturday, we wanted to get him all good to go to be adopted by someone. He is extremely loving, kind to kids and cats.
He is one year old, 1/2 Lab 1/2 Rottie. He has had 4 baths, (so much old blood and dirt came off of him) but his last bath we took together and he has no more ticks or fleas, all his shots have been given over the weekend and he is taking the last of his medication for hook worms. He has no heart worms.

It the last 48 hours, he has transformed to a scared dog to one that is starting to wag his tail and have hope. He craves love. I have never seen anything like it. So beautiful.

I have only owned cats but now I understand why people love dogs. I have never slept with a dog before and last night he slept on my chest and I loved every second of it.

Tomorrow morning he will be given a "Free" :) Femoral Head Ostectomy by Dr. Bennet and hi steam at San Juan Animal Hospital in Orange Park, Florida

72 hours ago a dog that was cold in the rain, kicked to the curb and limping looking for food is now clean and being fed and all that is left, is to get his broken hip fixed.

AMAZING NEWS. Dr. Bennett of San Juan Animal Hospital was so impressed by your dedication and love on Facebook to get Trident's hip well, that he and his staff at San Juan Animal Hospital are doing Trident'ship surgery 100% for Free, tomorrow morning at 8am. There will only be a cost of $150 for a separate neutering process and we have $620 in separate shots and scans from other locations.

I have been told before that Dr Bennett goes the distance for animals. We could not have afforded this operation without your support and his help.

Again, thanks to all of you, Dr. Bennett was able to grasp your love and words and engagement to never quit and go the distance for everyone, human or animal.

2 tired guys and one now super clean dog smile emoticon. Trident is all washed and dry and ready for his hip operation. Dr. Bennett and Dr. Guill of San Juan Animal Hospital of Jacksonville will be performing the operation on Trident this morning. Thanks to all of you, Trident will go from a homeless hurt dog, who could only use 3 legs and and did not want to give up on hope to all of you giving him 100% hope and love. As you know. When God entrusted us to take care of everything that is in this earth, it is so wonderful that we can do one tiny part help and never quit to enhance the life of someone else. Human or animal