Cat Kukla and her dog Bear have been inseparable since she first laid eyes on him at a shelter as a child. Now 17, Bear has been there for every chapter of her life, and there was one moment Kukla had always hoped he’d be there to witness.
“Growing up, I wasn’t the kind of girl who dreamed of a wedding,” she told animal news site, The Dodo. “But I did dream of Bear being at my wedding, riding in a little red wagon. That part I always knew.”
Kukla met her now-husband Jimmy in 2011, and Bear quickly became just as much his dog, too. Even while Kukla was away at college, Jimmy made sure to bring Bear to visit her every weekend. The three of them became a tight-knit little family, and as Bear got older, they cherished every extra year they had together.
But in 2018, just one week before their planned wedding, Bear’s health began to decline rapidly. Kukla was heartbroken. The thought of him not being there for her wedding, the one thing she had pictured for so long, felt unbearable.
That’s when she turned to Jimmy with an idea.
“I asked Jimmy if we should just get married at the vet so Bear could be there,” she said. “And he said, ‘I’d marry you any day, any time.’”
Bear was being treated at the VCA Veterinary Emergency Service & Veterinary Specialty Center, and when the staff heard about the couple’s plan, they were all in, according to Love This Pic. Friends and family jumped in to help pull everything together, knowing how much Bear meant to the couple, and how much it meant for him to be part of their day.
On the day of the wedding, Bear was wheeled into the ceremony in his little red wagon, just as Kukla had always imagined. Though groggy, he perked up the moment he saw his people.
“We actually chose a spot in the vet’s hallway because there was a photo on the wall that looked just like Bear,” Kukla said. “It felt right.”
During the short ceremony, Bear sat alert in his wagon, and then, in a moment that felt almost magical, he stood up and walked outside. He hadn’t done that in days.
“He walked a lot,” Kukla recalled. “It felt like he found a second wind just to be there for us.”
A week later, the couple held their originally planned wedding, but nothing could top that first, impromptu ceremony. It remains one of their most treasured memories.
Now, Bear’s health has declined again, and Kukla and Jimmy are doing everything they can to support him through it. Their love for him runs deep, so deep that, if they had to, they’d hold that wedding in a vet hospital all over again.
“After a year and a half of planning and stress, we realized none of it really mattered,” Kukla said. “All that mattered was that Jimmy and I got married with Bear by our side.”
READ MORE
- 40 starving dogs rescued from NYC apartment – see them now
- Grieving dog finds peace again at owner’s funeral
