UPDATE: in a strange and beautiful turn of events, we are no longer in need of emergency support and Jax is walking beautifully. If you’d like to follow his journey, visit us on Facebook at Jax Fancypaws. I want to thank each and every single one of you who took the time to donate, share our page, and reach out to check in. This was undoubtedly the worst thing I’ve ever experienced and my heart is with every other pet parent who has had to watch their baby suffer and not know how/what they’re going to do to help. Big thanks to VCA for their professionalism and compassion, Dr. Lozier is a brilliant surgeon and because of his talent, my dog is able to run on the beach and play with his friends. All things considered, Jax will go on to live and is living as normal a life as the one he had before his accident.  

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Tl;dr— disabled woman’s emotional support dog fell from a third story window in a freak accident, requiring emergency surgery that drained literally all of our resources. 

 Hello, my name is Sarah Levin and I am a 31 year old woman living with a disability. Jax, my rescue border collie/aussie, is my emotional support animal. I got him after a failed suicide attempt, and to say that he has made my life worth living would be an understatement. We have been together since May 30, 2020 and he is the light of my life. It has been so beautiful to watch him blossom from a shy, fearful pup into the Jax he is today. I don’t know much about his history before he came to live with me, but he was severely neglected by the people who surrendered him (happy to share before + after photos but they can be upsetting for those sensitive to suffering animals). 

Jax and I moved the week of 7/10/2022, and we live on the 3rd story of an apartment that is spacious enough for the two of us and down the street from a park. Typically, Jax would be with my ex/former housemate while I worked, so I enrolled him in daycare but there was a bit of a wait. I took several days off work with zero paid time off so that I could stay with him while he adjusted to our new home, but I had to go back in for a bit. My plan was to leave him here for a few hours, then take extended breaks so that I could care for him. I left for work on the morning of 7/20 and cracked the windows approximately three inches so that he could have some air. 

Anybody who knows me knows that I am incredibly neurotic about making sure my dog doesn’t get out, to the point that it interrupts my daily life (I have trauma from a dog running away when I was a child). I considered the possibility of Jax jumping out the window, but I wanted him to have some air and left it cracked shorter than the length of my index finger: this window is incredibly heavy, requiring both arms to lift it open. He was scheduled for a daycare evaluation at Mother Pupper the next day. 

Around 9:00am at work I received a call from a strange number followed by a text to call ASAP that my dog was hurt. My heart sank and my first thought was that someone from maintenance came into my apartment and let him out, or worse, someone broke in. It wasn’t until the people who were kind enough to help discovered that my front door was locked that I even entertained the idea that he’d fallen from a 3 story window since he was still alive, not in medical shock, and not in the condition one would think a pet would be in after such a high fall. 

I took him to DoveLewis right away, they stabilized him, then the next day I took him to Northwest Neighborhood Veterinary where they informed me that Jax fractured both his front and hind legs. We expected this would be an amputation but Dr. Lozier of VCA Northwest was able to remove the femoral head and put in some pins, with a 7.5 out of 10 success rate. 

Jax is currently in the process of healing and requires constant supervision, which has lead me to having to take a leave of absence from my work since company policy prohibited me from working remotely. Although the surgery itself was covered with CareCredit, we have spent thousands out-of-pocket on both his emergency care, his extended hospital stay, medication, and the necessary supplies. On top of all of this, I am still working hard to make sure our basics are covered, like rent, utilities, and food. 

Every little bit helps, and we thank you for taking the time to read this. I am asking everyone that reads this to please share, even if you are unable to donate. 

Special thanks (people not featured on this page but who have donated): Omar Osnaya, David Gross, my mom’s neighbor Rena. Transparency is important to us so we have modified the asking amount on GoFundMe to reflect donations given directly.