End of life photos of Beau on his last day with his family

RIP Beau. Thank you, Katie and Mat, for letting me into your home on such a hard day. I photographed Beau with his family on 28 September 2025, and later that day they said goodbye to him.

Katie booked an end of life pet photo session for the whole family: Katie, Mat, their kids Kyan, Remi and Ever, and the kids’ grandma, Grammy. She planned it for the same day as Beau’s euthanasia, and she held off booking the vet until the photos were locked in.

Who was Beau?

Beau would have turned 13 in November. He came home with Katie and Mat as a tiny puppy, and he’d been by their side ever since. Katie says he slept in her bed more than all three of her kids combined, and he was the one she cried into when she couldn’t cry to anyone else.

Beau was diagnosed with brain cancer while Katie was pregnant with Ever. He had two surgeries to remove the tumour, and the family were told their time with him was limited. They got nearly four more years. By this year the cancer had come back and spread, with a tumour on his back the size of an orange, and at his age more surgery wasn’t an option.

Beau and Kyan

Kyan was 10 when I met him, and he was living with brain cancer too. Beau had been his constant companion through his own illness and some of his hardest moments. Katie wanted these photos to hold the bond between them as much as anything.

Afterwards she wrote: “How does he process that the monster killing his best friend is the same one he’s fighting every day?” I don’t have an answer to that. What I could do was give Kyan time with Beau and photograph it. He spent a long while lying with him, on the couch and then on the rug, with his head against Beau’s.

Photos on the day of euthanasia

Booking a photographer and the vet for the same day sounds hard, and it is. But for a dog who’s near the end, it can be the kindest way to get these photos. You’re not waiting for a good day that may not come, and the whole family is already home together.

Katie got the order right: book the photos first, then set the vet appointment around them. On the day, everything went at Beau’s pace. We started together on the couch, and when he wanted to lie down on the rug, everyone moved down to the floor with him. When he needed to rest, he rested, with his family around him.

Ice cream on the rug

Katie says Beau still had tiny sparks of excitement here and there, and food brought them out. There were treats on the rug, and then Ever, Remi and Kyan each had a turn giving him an ice cream cone. He didn’t need to be asked twice.

Time with each of them

Everyone had some time alone with Beau. Grammy lay on the floor nose to nose with him. Mat sat with Beau in his lap. Remi lay across his back, and Katie held him close for a long time. One of my favourites from the day is just hands, several of them, holding one of Beau’s paws.

Saying goodbye to Beau

Later that day, the family said goodbye to Beau. He’d been slowly declining, and Katie knew his sparks of excitement weren’t enough anymore. It wouldn’t have been fair to keep him here in pain.

“I don’t know how to imagine this house, this bed, this life without him,” she wrote, “but I know he’ll always be with us.” Forever their boy, 21.11.2012 – 28.09.2025.

What Katie said

“He’s the reason Mat and I moved out together. We wanted a dog, we got Beau, and the rest became our life. Our very first baby, and he’s been by our side ever since.”

Katie, writing about Beau after saying goodbye