Please help me save my service dog by appealing a mishandled 'replevin' case.

UPDATE: We have secured enough funding to start the appeal process before the deadline. More is still needed to continue the appeal throughout the coming weeks and months, but at least now there is HOPE and TIME! Thank you for your support so far, and please share with others if you can so we can get more eyes on this and bring Esmé home.

Hi everyone, thank you for taking the time to read this and for considering helping me and my service dog.

I know everyone has a lot going on right now, many more than my troubles.

I'm a rather private person when it comes to my struggles. I try not to burden others, as we are all going through something. My close friends and the friends who came through to help me so far with this situation are in the loop, but I've been pretty silent about my experiences otherwise. The world is also experiencing many troubling events right now, and my experiences—difficult as they have been for me—seem to pale by comparison. But, today is a big deal for me and my mental health after a more-than-a-year-long legal battle with my abusive ex partner.

Today (Feb 2, 2026), the last year of my abuser using the courts to take my service dog from me via an archaic common law “replevin” suit likely wraps up, unless I can raise the funds to file an appeal (and it is a strong case for appeal, I am just financially stretched too thin).

I have until Friday, February 13 (10 days) to appeal and come up with the money to retain a civil appellate lawyer. [See update above!]

The judge who ruled in misalignment with the evidence and law in October was responsible for reviewing the post-judgment motion we filed in November, and she still held up her initial ruling (apparently without reviewing the evidence or facts or case law again—which might have terrible consequences for future Missourians who find themselves in a replevin suit).

Skip to the end for how you can help. Read on for a summary of events, for context.

I don't even know where to begin telling my story, as it feels so long and convoluted. I get panic attacks thinking about it for too long. I've been in therapy for a year navigating being an abuse survivor and I have been in "hermit mode" trying to make extra income to pay down all the lawyer bills my ex's actions have saddled me with. It's been a living slow-burn nightmare for over a year now. I went no-contact with her and her family on 1/1/2025 and I still fear for my safety.

Since NYE 2024, I've been surviving the fallout of leaving the narcissistic abusive relationship that I was in for years. I finally broke up with my ex at the end of December in 2024, and with the help of friends I was able to safely leave my home with my service dog, Esmé, and a few of my possessions on New Year's Eve (2 backpacks, 2 totes, a pillow, and some dog stuff), when my ex and her parents trapped me in my office for over 6 hours. The following day I survived what I believe to be a premeditated attempt on my life by my ex and her parents, based on the events and the Ring cam footage that recorded them practicing audio that they would repeat that next day on 1/1/2025.

After escaping with Esmé, it then took 2 months and a court order to get most of my property back from my ex, which she refused to let me retrieve until that point (Feb 2025)—an entire household worth of my property, including decades of accumulated collectibles and all of my work property. She still has a lot of my property that she hid or refused to let me retrieve after she and her sister delayed the move out process, but I managed to get most of it with the help of my friends working in shifts. My ex also removed all of our shared vet files and home equity files from the home during this time—of which I had photos and records of most, thankfully.

My ex then filed a "replevin" suit against me in Feb 2025, which is a descendant of archaic common law where someone claims another person has their property and wants the state to step in and help them get it back. She claimed my service dog, Esmé, was her "sole" property (which at **most** the evidence clearly shows Esmé was joint property and the evidence more strongly supports that she was my property with whom my ex formed a familial bond). My ex claimed, and had her mother and sister lie under oath, that she purchased my service dog outright, even though the breeder I bought her from testified in court that my ex paid the adoption deposit fee of $250 via check (to get us on the waitlist) and that I personally paid the breeder $750 cash from my pocket at the adoption (I had brought $1,000 thinking the deposit check could be canceled, as I was making the purchase—I later reimbursed my ex her $250). The breeder testified that my name and my ex's name were both on the original litter adoption record, and that the receipt given to us on purchase had only my ex's name but that it was an oversight; the breeder also testified that she offered to correct the receipt, but since it would take her some time, we declined at my ex's and her parents' insisting (they were on a time crunch, we all car pooled). Emails between my ex and me also show how she and I planned the adoption together (the email and text evidence was given in court and contradicted her claims that Esmé was for her parents, then her, and her claims that I was an afterthought).

The vet account was set up in my name as the owner, with my ex as a secondary (I removed her from the account after being forced out of my home after the breakup, which only an owner can do). The microchip is in my name. The Chewy account is in my name, and I bought all her food, etc. My ex signed the vet paperwork confirming my ownership and was looped into the microchipping process as it occurred, and never protested it, though she lied in court claiming I did these both behind her back (she was present and signed the vet documentation, and was looped into the emails with the microchip company, which were both provided as evidence in court as well). My ex never once tried to have any documentation changed to her name, never protested me as the owner, etc. in all the years prior to the breakup.

After I escaped my home, my ex went onto the American Kennel Club (AKC) website and filed Esmé in her name, attempting to establish some ownership claim. We never planned to breed Esmé, and had her spayed in spring of 2022 before her first birthday, and the AKC is just a purebred dog registry, not any official form of ownership. (This matters later.)

I co-slept with my dog from her first night with us. I set alarms to take her outside to potty every 2 hours for the first 2 weeks to fast-track her potty training. I trained her to be my service animal to alert me to impending panic attacks, starting her training before she was a year old, and getting her a starter service vest before her training was complete. When my ex and I traveled, I took Esmé with me/us everywhere, usually in her service vest as well. We have many photos, most taken by my ex, of me and my service dog in her vest in public. There are tons of public social media posts and private messages by my ex confirming Esmé was my dog, was 'my' service dog, or was referred to as "our" dog over and over for years. My ex's parents sent holiday cards addressed to me and Esmé and separate cards to my ex, again because of this dynamic. All of this evidence was presented in court. (My weekly D&D group would regularly witness Esmé alerting me when I was getting elevated as well.)

My ex moved to Georgia to pursue a PhD program she was accepted into in 2023. She had planned to be there for 3 years, but came back after quitting after just 1 year. It was always the plan that Esmé stayed with me and I maintained our home, and then after a year we would look into whether I'd also move to GA and we'd rent out our house or we'd do a 2-state living arrangement, etc. My service dog stayed with me the entire time she was away. In court my ex lied and claimed she only left Esmé with me because she couldn't find an apartment that let her have pets. The evidence did not support her narrative spin. In the ~3.5 years I had Esmé, from fall 2021 until Dec 2024, a year of that time I was her sole caretaker, and the rest I was her primary caretaker, and that evidence was submitted to the court.

The law and evidence was clearly on my side at every step. At most my ex and I were joint owners, and an owner of property cannot exert unauthorized control of that property, so the replevin must fail. My ex failed to show she had a superior ownership claim to Esmé, so the replevin must fail. With all the evidence, it more supports the fact that I was Esmé's owner, she was my service dog, and that my ex was a secondary caretaker in my dog's life.

In court last year, my ex's lawyer attempted to claim ADHD and panic attacks were not a disability, that I didn't need a service animal, etc. Opposing counsel attempted to spin the breeder's testimony and make her doubt her memory, despite that poor woman having no reason to lie and clearly remembering a ton of details about the adoption day over 4 years prior.

I don't know why the judge ruled how she did initially. She was very busy the first day of court and rushed us all to wrap up, citing her having prior obligations. Our case was interrupted multiple times for the judge to attend to other court matters as well that day. Multiple times on the first day of court, the judge and opposing counsel conflated two different pieces of evidence (the litter record and the purchase receipt) as if they were the same piece of evidence—my lawyer pointed this discrepancy out each time, but was seemingly ignored as evidenced by the initial October 2025 judgment. The judge also cited the post-breakup AKC registration by my ex as proof of my ex's ownership, and stated that if I were an owner I could have done the same anytime in the preceding 4 years (though I never would have, as I was not breeding Esmé...); that said, at any time in the preceding 4 years, my ex never once tried to have her name put on the vet or microchip or Chewy accounts or STL City registry or otherwise contest my ownership or register her with the AKC (etc.). The judge also did not apply evidence equally, instead favoring my ex when it would have applied to both of us, or ignoring similar evidence that would have supported my position. I do not know whether this was intentional or not. The judge's initial October judgment also omitted all of the key evidence and also presented factually incorrect information which she used in that ruling. The post judgment motion (photos attached to this post) showcase this if you care to look.

I filed a post judgment motion in Nov 2025, which cost thousands more to do, to preserve the evidence (the screenshots at the end of this post).

My lawyer did what appears to be a stellar job pointing out everything, both to preserve the record (all the evidence simply disappears without this motion) as well as to reiterate all the points presented in court that the judge ignored/overlooked, as well as pointing out the discrepancies and unusual one-sidedness in the judge's ruling. (All of this was slowed down by the holidays as well.)

My lawyer was shocked by the initial judgment in October. And more shocked by the judge ordering me to surrender my dog before the judgment was final...

Unlike most judgments where there is time to file motions and then to appeal, the judge added that I had to surrender my service dog to my ex within 3 days of the initial judgment being entered at the end of October! That is HIGHLY irregular. But the judge had the power to do it. Normally, a person keeps the disputed property until the judgment becomes final (after post-judgment motions and appeals have been exhausted).

So I had to give my dog to my abuser just before Halloween 2025. Give up my baby. My service animal. For fear of my ex causing another false scene at the hand-off, I had a trusted friend do the hand-off for me, which was even harder.

I've co-slept with Esmé every night since bringing her home from fall of 2021 until the end of October 2025, excepting about 4-5 misc. nights. My nervous system co-regulated with her presence. The absence of Esmé is louder than any hours-long screaming my ex subjected me to, hits harder than any object my ex threw at me, hurts my heart more than any of the demeaning words and lies and gaslighting and financial abuse my ex put me through.

So.

This morning was the hearing for the post judgment motion which we filed in November, over 2 months ago. The judge who made the initial ruling against what the evidence and the law supports decided not to reconsider her own ruling, not to amend her ruling, and not to order a new trial, instead keeping her ruling as-is without apparently reviewing anything in the motion.

I had held out hope that this time she would finally examine the evidence and side with the law and correct this injustice. I'm certain she sees horrible things all the time in family court, and I assume a 'contested dog' is low on her priority list to care about, but I hoped she would do what is right for my and Esmé's sake. She did not. My only option now is to appeal.

An aside: [[And even though it's been over a year of this ongoing struggle, it won't be over with this ruling, regardless of the outcome of any appeal. I still have around $50K in home equity tied up in the house my ex and I bought together. That's an entirely different matter to deal with that will require a different lawyer to try and recover, which required me waiting on this ruling / any appeal first to pursue. At best I stand to recover some 50% of my equity. And there's still around $12-15K in my personal property my ex still has in her possession that she didn't let me retrieve during the court-ordered move out in Feb 2025 (she and her sister kept delaying the process and she hid a lot of items in cabinets and closets and under blankets and refused to let me and my friends get those things)—and that is all tied up with this replevin case, so I don't really know where my remaining property stands at this time. My ex and I also were working on some of each other's creative projects before the end of 2024 which never finished, so there is uncertainty with logistics there as well.]]

I'm easily $20-25K in debt right now between lawyer fees, therapy, and moves/storage fees, and having to buy all new equipment and supplies for work in Jan of last year when my ex was extorting my property, etc. (Unrelated, my rental house's roof was ripped off during the tornadoes in spring of 2025, so I had to move yet again last summer.)

And all of that doesn't matter to me if I can get my dog back. I can pay off debt. I can start over from scratch, even in my 40s. Esmé is both my service animal and the closest thing I'm going to have to a child. We lived in tandem for over 4 years.

I worked with a new vet last year and got her seizures under control to the point she didn't have one in over a full month (CBD oil and MCT oil regimen, btw, for anyone who has dogs with regular seizures), and I got her skin allergies under control with proper diet over the years. I just hope she has been okay and well taken care of with my ex since the end of October.

(For most of last year, Esmé formed a strong bond with a friend's older dog named Charlie. The two of them were really good for each other.)

I don't know. I just need people to know I'm struggling. I'm hurting. I survived narcissistic abuse and financial abuse for 5 years and am still surviving the legal abuse my ex has been leveraging against me the last year and change.

I only have 10 days (including today) to appeal. Appealing in civil law is extremely expensive. I will need financial help, or I will have to just experience more crushing loss while my abuser "wins." There is no best outcome if I'm left with no choice but to appeal.

And if anyone ever doubts me about the abuse I endured, message me (I am not comfortable publicly discussing all of the details of the abuse I suffered at this time, as I fear further retaliation). I have the 'receipts.' The emails, the texts, the purchase receipts, the photos, the Ring doorbell recordings, the audio recordings, the witnesses, and more. I will only discuss facts and I will neither disparage my ex nor entertain anyone doing the same. I know what I went through, and how she treated me versus how she presented herself to the world.

In a perfect world, I get my dog back, my home equity back, and whatever property of mine she still has, and we both live our separate lives never to interact again. But getting my dog back is my main focus, and I have to appeal to do that.

I just want peace after surviving my ex, and I hope that nobody else ever has to go through the abuse that I and others have experienced from her and her family.

How You Can Help Esmé and Me:

I'm not a beggar, but I'm pretty tapped out financially. I need your help, and these are the best ways:

If you have the ability to financially help me reduce my legal fees so I can stay head above water, that would be the most direct, immediate, and helpful thing you can do right now.
If you know a pro-bono civil appellate lawyer who practices in Missouri that can help me with my case before Feb 12, that would be a godsend.
If you know a civil appellate lawyer who will work on a payment plan, that would also be helpful.
If you want to hire me to do writing or editing work, that's in my wheelhouse, as I've done both professionally for over a decade.
If you're local and need balloon decor or balloon twisting for your parties, I have done that professionally for 13 years.
If you want to pay me to run online Dungeons & Dragons / TTRPG games for you and your friends, we can set up a campaign and you get something for your financial support.
If you want to work out a private loan and repayment plan, I'm open to that if I cannot reach my funding goals.
Anything helps at this point.

THE CASE

These last photos of this post are screenshots of the post judgment motion we filed in Nov 2025, which was denied today. It highlights the main evidence in the case and what went awry with the judge's ruling in October. I still have no idea why the judge ruled how she did, it makes no sense to me or my lawyer.