Here are two pictures of Louise Dobble from Adelaide, Australia, with her family and their dog Tigger on his last day before he died. They were taken about 15 years apart.
The first picture was taken "about 14–15 years ago", she says. In the picture is Lauren (top left), now 29, Samantha, now 23, Louise (bottom left), now 22, and Elizabeth, now 21 (bottom right).
Tigger was a Jack Russell, and he was born in 2000. "We first bought Tigger home when I was 6," said Louise Dobble. "We got him at about 6–8 weeks old – he used to fit in a tissue-box bed that I made him the day we got him. I insisted he came home in this!"
The decision to take the photo was, she said, unplanned. She told BuzzFeed she and her sisters were gathered around, sharing memories of their dog when he was a pup while waiting for the vet to come, and came across the photo, which they hadn't seen in years. Her sister Samantha suggested they recreate it. "Immediately we were rummaging through clothes trying to find the right attire to do so!" she said.
Dobble said: "He was brought into the world and said goodbye to in the same house. ... I think it's more sentimental knowing it's in the same backyard he lived his life."
"He sadly had to be put down ... due to some health problems," she said. "It was an extremely hard decision to make but we knew it was best for him to do so. He had a great life and we didn't want to remember our dog in a bad way."
Dobble said: "Age was never a set back for Tigger, but slowly as he aged his hours of sleeping became longer and longer and his walk became slower, we knew he was tired and we all knew it was time for us to lay his gentle precious soul to rest."
She said: "On his last day my sister Elizabeth took him to the park to have a run around and a play, [and] he made friends with another dog that day who was 15!
Everywhere Tigger went he made friends with dogs – he never understood when they growled or snarled at him, because he still tried to get close to them!
"We had a vet attend our home and he put Tig to rest on his bed (where [the] majority of his days where spent) with my sisters and I holding him, surrounded by my parents and our partners. We buried him in our front yard – it was the was the perfect sendoff for our king."
She added: "We actually have another photo taken minutes apart of us standing nicely and smiling happily, but we thought the silly one was a better interpretation of Tigger's life with us, and better showed the happiness he brought to our lives and us."
The photos went viral after she uploaded them to Imgur. Dobble said: "There are thousands of stories and memories we now cherish of Tigger, and moments that will make us smile for the rest of our lives. He loved people, and it's very ironic that the story of Tigger has now touched the hearts of people he never even met."