Wedding photo of South Dakota bride with service dog goes viral

The heck with a thousand words ― this picture is worth a lot more.

The photo shows the special bond shared between a South Dakota bride and her service dog.

It has now gone viral and has been warming hearts all over the world.

Valerie Parrott says her medical alert service dog Bella has “been trained to be with me and we’ve been together as a team for over two years now.”

Images: SheinDressAU

Parrott suffers from panic disorders and migraines and Bella helps by alerting her minutes before something happens.

Wedding photographer Maddie Peschong said “in the photo, Bella was performing a job. Calming Val down during a hectic, stressful wedding day, making sure her heart rate is where it needs to be, and anxiety isn’t getting to be too much. It was a work day for Bella.

“On Thursday, I got a message from a friend that said the photo had been posted on Reddit and was #4 at the time. I thought that was a really big deal and really cool. I texted Val, we got really excited. Within an hour or so, we got media inquiries from all over the U.S.”

Peschong is grateful for the publicity but says there’s more to it than that.

“The bigger story is that it’s really giving Val a platform to talk about service dogs and that they’re valuable life companions. Not things you can see and here, but a slough of invisible diseases, and that’s what Bella is for.”

Bella is a huge part of Parrott’s life, so naturally, she was a huge part of the wedding day. She even got her own “first look” with Andrew, the groom.

“My life wouldn’t be the same without her,” Parrott said. “With Bella, and because of our partnership, I have been able to live my life to the fullest that I normally wouldn’t have been able to have done.”

Since the photo went viral, Parrott has had so much good feedback from the service animal community. She even has her own blog detailing the life of a service dog team.

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