Kentucky resident Natalie Hahn loves her rescue dog, Millie Biscuit, so much that the beloved black dog was in her wedding earlier this year. Millie Biscuit, dressed in a special collar for the occasion and with her trademark “happy ear” sticking up, walked down the aisle with Dorothy, the groom’s boxer, just before the bride made her entrance.

Hahn even made each dog a special wedding cake so they could partake in the party before heading home.

For Hahn, it was an easy and obvious choice to have Millie Biscuit featured in her wedding. The two have been inseparable since Hahn fostered and then adopted Millie Biscuit in November of 2024.

“Thanksgiving weekend is when I took her home to foster. And I knew that weekend I wasn’t going to take her back,” she recalled. “She crawled in my lap on the way home, and it was just so sweet. She just had the sweetest temperament. She was very timid at first, but she was potty-trained. She was just such a good dog right out of the gate.”

Millie Biscuit had landed in an animal shelter in rural Kentucky after her previous owner landed in jail. She was transported for two hours to the nonprofit Paws 4 the Cause in Lexington.

“She was very scared and just exhausted,” Hahn said. “And then someone else had tried to foster to adopt her and they brought her back before me.”

When Hahn initially brought Millie Biscuit into her Lexington home, the pitbull mix seemed extremely cautious. On their first walk in the neighborhood, Millie Biscuit trailed behind Hahn.

“I learned about the ‘3-3-3 rule’ for rescues where it’s three days for them to decompress, three weeks to learn your routine, and three months to finally start having their personality come out,” she said. “And I feel like that was pretty true to her.”

Over the next few months, Millie Biscuit blossomed. Hahn, who works in healthcare marketing at the University of Kentucky, started bringing her to the office every day and to the local dog park, where she loved playing with other dogs.

“She really just was so much happier. She’s a little social butterfly,” she said. “She does tippy taps when we’re going to go anywhere, and it looks like she’s dancing. And then she’s just such a cuddle bug and she’s pretty clingy, but I personally love that. I love snuggling with her.”

Millie Biscuit Gains A Following

Hahn wanted to share her special dog with the world, and created social media accounts for @MillieBiscuit_ , who now has over 44 thousand followers across platforms. She’s passionate about highlighting the joys of adopting black dogs, who often go overlooked and linger longer in animal shelters in a phenomenon called “ black dog syndrome .” October 1 is even National Black Dog Day to try to draw awareness to the issue and encourage people to consider adopting black dogs.

Last month, Hahn used Millie Biscuit’s platform to promote pet adoption during the national pet adoption campaign Clear the Shelters , sharing videos of adoptable dogs at Paws 4 the Cause.

While she’d love to adopt another dog and dreams of having a home with a huge yard so she can foster and adopt many more animals, Millie Biscuit and Dorothy would object to a newcomer. They can be so jealous that both dogs have to be petted at the same time.

“They all tugged at my heartstrings,” Hahn said. “When I made those videos, I was sobbing because I just want to adopt them all.”

Instead, she’ll have to settle for celebrating the joy of pet adoption and encouraging others to give fostering or adopting dogs a try. She recently created an Instagram page for Dorothy , who is almost 11 years old, with the goal of promoting senior dog adoptions .

Hahn always hopes people will consider adopting older dogs instead of insisting on puppies, since there are benefits to adopting adult dogs.

“There’s a lot of good things about getting an older dog,” she said. “They’re probably already housetrained. They’re past that puppy stage of wanting to chew everything or keeping you up all night.”

Ultimately, she’s head-over-heels in love with Millie Biscuit and hopes other dog lovers will keep an open mind about the type of dog they’d like to adopt from an animal shelter or rescue organization. She’s grateful that she found a special dog who is so different from what she thought she was looking for.

“I was living alone, so I wanted a dog that might’ve barked or was a little bit protective. Millie is not any of those things, but it worked out good,” she said. “I want to just keep building on this, in helping other rescue dogs and breaking the stigma that there’s something wrong with rescue dogs. Not true. You need to just go meet them.”