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At 4 a.m., in temperatures of -7°C, Alisa Teptiuk and her husband Dmytro faced an impossible choice: keep moving toward safety or stay with the dog who could no longer walk. They chose both. Fleeing Kyiv with their family, they had already traveled nearly 100 miles when the roads became impassable. The final 11 kilometers to the Polish border had to be crossed on foot, through darkness and freezing cold. Pulya, their 12-and-a-half-year-old German Shepherd, tried to keep up but collapsed repeatedly. Passing drivers urged them to leave her behind. But Alisa and Dmytro refused. They took turns carrying Pulya on their shoulders through the snow until they reached the border. A photograph of Dmytro carrying the exhausted dog became one of the crisis's most widely shared images. But the moment captured something even bigger than the journey itself. They were leaving their home, but they refused to leave a member of their family behind. When you get a pet, your job is to love them until their dying day — not just when they are young and strong, but when they are elderly, tired, and need you most. Alisa and Dmytro understood that. They reached safety together, because abandoning Pulya was never an option. Family deserves love. Family deserves loyalty. Family deserves to be carried through the darkness, no matter how far. See less