Hi all,

Thank you for being here and for taking the time to read about our girl. Last Friday, January 9th 2026, our sweet girl accidentally got out of our fence because the gate to our yard did not shut or lock completely after Sarabi’s mom, Hannah left for work. Sarabi is a 6 year old chow chow and her mamas pride and joy. This has never happened before, nor has she ever showed any interest in being outside of the fence. Our girl is a sucker for chasing squirrels, cats, bunnies, raccoons, and opossums so we believe that may have been what sparked her interest to bolt in the first place, but we are not entirely sure what exactly happened for her to get out and run. Our other potential guess is that she was trying to follow her mama after she left for work that morning?

We realized she got out of the yard around 7am, immediately dropped everything we were doing, jumped in our cars and ran to look for her. Han, immediately jumping up from work out in Chesterfield, MO and rushing back home to the city to try to find her. Tim, already being at home jumped in the car and started circling the block.

We called our friends, animal control, the cops, the company home again who Sarabi’s microchip is registered with, shelters, hung flyers throughout the neighborhood, posted all over social media .. we did everything in our power to try to find her and get her back, for 7 days straight..

When we called animal control they said they had a call come in notifying them that someone had hit a small red dog on South Broadway. The poor driver tried to get her but Sarabi ran off so she tried to follow behind her in the car but could only get so far before losing sight of her. We had one more call come in of an animal control officer seeing her a few blocks away the very next morning but again.. no capture. Then, nothing.. no sightings, no calls, no tips, no possible similar descriptions, nothing… for days.

To make matters worse, Hannah is roughly 8 months pregnant, with multiple autoimmune diseases trying to spend ever free minute she has searching a 3 mile radius up and down busy Saint Louis streets, alleys, and circling abandoned buildings looking anywhere that Sarabi could have been hiding and or searching for food or shelter from the cold. Animals lovers will understand that our pets are not just pets they’re our family members and that is exactly how we feel about our sweet girl.

6years ago Hannah’s brother passed away after a long battle with addiction and Sarabi was a solution to helping her get through her grief. Her brother was born on December 16th and Sarabi was born the very same year he passed on December 8th. It felt serendipitous that this dog belonged with Hannah and was sent to help her grieve and find joy again during such a dark time. It’s often said that death and births come in 3s… unfortunately Hannah’s situation was no different. Han’s brother passed in June of 2019. 2020 came in with a bang Covid hit and in August Hannah’s paternal grandpa slipped and fell in his garage cracking a rib, causing hospitalization and eventually passed away as well and gave their family no ability to visit or say goodbye due to strict isolation requirements. Again the very next year Hannah’s grandpa on her mothers side after a few weeks of a not feeling well also passed in his sleep in April of 2021. If you back track and think about that time line that’s 3 huge losses for their family in roughly 2.5 years and Sarabi was there through it all to help Han grieve and get her through such impossible loss.

If you know anything about the Chow Chow breed specifically you know that they are not “everyone’s dog.” They bond with one person that they claim on their own and that for Sarabi was also Han. Understanding more of the history of how they found each other I hope paints a clearer picture as to why this particular dog was not just a family member, she was the glue that kept Hannah together, she was joy during sorrow and helped Han heal after an enormous amount of. loss and grief in such a short period of time.

Only being 6 years old losing Sarabi for a week with no answers and no clear radius of where to narrow down her search was such an unexpected loss and absolutely gut wrenching for Hannah and Tim’s growing family. She was lost and so were we without her. We had no idea if she was dead or alive, hit by another car and dying in an abandoned building waiting for someone to find and help her, stolen by a neighbor. We had no ideas no clues, and no real answers as to her condition or whereabouts.

By what can only be described as a miracle, The same Animal Control Officer who spotted Sarabi the morning after she went missing saw her again, this time on a on ramp to highway 55 7 days later. He immediately went after her, she did try to run but due to her injuries couldn’t get away with any kind of speed and because at that point she had been alone fending for herself on the streets for a week, she was ready for help and laid in the median and allowed him to trap her and put her in a kennel in the back of his van.

She has helped us during immense pain, and sadness, loved us back to life and brought joy and healing back into our lives. Now, it’s our turn to do the same for her by helping her get this surgery and on to a better quality of life. We certainly do not expect anything from any one but know that so many people in Saint Louis and our circle of family and friends love her and have been searching with us, following along, reading our updates and praying for her safe return back home. No matter what happens we will figure this out and get her the surgery she needs, but if you would like to donate to helping us cover the cost of her surgical and medical bills we are and will be eternally grateful for any support or donations.

We truly have no idea what this will cost and need to spend the weekend calling different clinics and asking for estimates, so for now we took a wild guess based off what the Animal Hospital quoted as a potential and set our donation goal to $5,000. We certainly don’t expect to meet that goal but any amount will help relieve some of the financial burden off our family.

Thank you for reading about our girl and for being along with us through this very unexpected and traumatic experience.

sincerely,

Hannah, Tim, Sarabi, and the baby on the way.