Jude's Autism Service Dog

Dear family and friends,

This is difficult to share and even more difficult to ask for your help. We are fundraising to provide our son, Jude, with an autism service dog. It will cost us roughly $18,000 in highly-specialized training to accomplish this. When sharing our lives publicly, I often omit some of the “harder” moments. Jude is a gift, and we celebrate him every single day.

Jude is autistic and non-speaking. Accompanying his autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, Jude has a global developmental delay, eloping/wandering behavior, anxiety, a sleep disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, sensory processing disorder, and pica. He cannot communicate his thoughts, feelings, pain, or even basic wants/needs. While his communication skills are emerging (“I want water.”), I don’t know if we will ever know what our little boy wants to be when he grows up or if his belly hurts.

To know Jude is to love him. He radiates joy. He loves his music, swinging, letters, rainbows, Daniel Tiger, and his family. At times he can be paralyzed by his anxiety and his frustration trying to communicate in a world that was not made to accommodate him. He struggles outside of his routine at home, and things that might bring him joy (an aquarium, a trip to the zoo, a birthday party) bring dangers: anxiety to the point of injuring himself or others, eloping, impulsivity (he has no sense of danger), and the unthinkable. Twice, Jude has escaped our home and it took a neighborhood search to find him. I thank God every day that he was found safe each time.

We are committed to giving Jude the most happy, full life. We truly believe a service animal will provide him with an improved quality of life, positive interactions with the outside world, the possibility of some independence (imagine, walking on a sidewalk without someone clutching his hand for fear of him getting hurt or running off!), and much-needed companionship. We want Jude to grow up in his community feeling supported and at ease, and an autism service dog will help give him that sense of peace both at home and when out in public.

A service dog is very expensive—a huge financial investment. Using an agency would cost tens of thousands of dollars. If we would wait for an agency to find a dog specifically for Jude, we would have to wait a minimum of two years for placement.

We recently acquired a double doodle: Emmy (we named her with sounds that Jude is able to say). She has already connected with Jude and has just the right temperament for the job. 

Emmy will learn:

Dear family and friends, we are humbly asking for donations to help us make a service dog a reality for our Jude. He asks for nothing but deserves the very best. The reality of the situation is that we need to raise this money as soon as possible so that Emmy can start the program and we can start Jude on his path to a more safe and peaceful day-to-day life.

If you prefer to bypass the deducted fees from GoFundMe, please feel free to Venmo me directly @lisaknight82. Every penny goes directly to providing Jude with his trained autism service animal.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your consideration, for reading, sharing, and donating! You are all a part of Jude’s story.

Sincerely, Lisa and Sean Knight, Jim and Paula Belopotosky