It was super late at night, and Anna Costleycouldn’t sleep.
Earlier in the day, she had been on TikTok and stumbled upon videos of people participating in the Google Maps trend, in which users reminisce over photos of their old homes taken from satellite images over the years. She decided it would be the perfect time to look up her old house.
At first, Costley, now 25, thought she’d come across an updated photo of the new owners, but to her surprise, after zooming into the image, she spotted a photo of the house from what she guessed was at least 13 years ago.
In the photo were her childhood dogs, Louie, a puggle, whom the family got when Costley was 5 years old, and Josie, a terrier pug mix, whom the family adopted three years later.
“Louie was my best bud,” Costley tells us exclusively. “He passed away in 2021. Josie passed away this year. They were the craziest dogs and also the funniest. People would say that Josie was so ugly she was cute because the older she got the more of an underbite she grew haha. But she made our whole family laugh because she was so goofy, she really brought our family together.
“Seeing the photo instantly gave me a wave of nostalgia and made me cry,” she adds. “The trend really shows you how fast life moves. Something can be your reality one day and quickly become just a memory. I watched those two crazy dogs bark in the driveway hundreds of times and never realized how much I would miss it.”
Anna Costley with her late dogs.
Courtesy of Anna Costley
Costley, who now works in marketing and advertising, grew up in a house in Plymouth, Mich.. She lived there for her entire life — 23 years — until she moved out to live on her own. Then, in 2023, her parents sold the house.
“The house I grew up in is so special,” she says. “Something I do not think people talk about enough is how hard it is to sell and move out of your childhood home. It was so extremely sad, I spent weeks crying.”
Before the family moved out, they walked through every single room, reminiscing about memories from the time Costley broke her arm, or when the family brought home their first puppy, or the day they found out their dad was cancer-free, or where the siblings took their first steps.
“It feels like you’re leaving behind not just a house, but all of the memories — your siblings at all their different ages, your past pets, and your own past selves,” she says.
“My best friends grew up on the same street as me and the night before I moved out we secretly wrote our names on the walls of one of the closets,” she adds. “I have so many favorite memories from that house but honestly I would love to have one more family dinner with both my brothers and parents home and those dogs begging for food under the table.”
Anna Costley with her family and dogs in their old house.
Courtesy of Anna Costley
After coming across the photo on Google Maps of her old house and dogs, Costley showed her parents right away. Upon seeing it, she says they chuckled thinking back to the barking dogs, and the moments they shared with them.
“My favorite Louie memory is when we were trying to pack up the car to go on a road trip,” Costley says. “My dad kept telling Louie to get in the car, and Louie got confused and jumped ON the hood of the Volvo instead.”
“A funny Josie memory was actually right before we sold the house, she was in that very spot in the driveway barking at the UPS man and the UPS man told us he would not deliver to us anymore because he was too scared of her,” she adds. “We all laughed so hard because she is the tiniest little dog that would not hurt a fly.”
Anna Costley childhood home.
Courtesy of Anna Costley
Eventually, Costley decided to post the photo she found on TikTok to share with her friends and family, and pay a little tribute to her late dogs on her social media. But then, to her surprise, the video went viral, amassing more than 4.5 million views and 5,000 comments.
“this one has us in tears 🥹🩵,” Zillow commented on the video.
“Forever their house ❤️,” another person wrote.
Someone else said, “I lost my soul dog 1.5 month ago and I saw this trend and look my address up! And HES THERE!!! Just sunbathing! OMG how much I miss him I just can’t stop hurting I like to think that he is in heaven.”
“I loved reading the comments of people’s stories about their passed grandparents and pets in their photos,” Costley says. “It makes me happy that people are able to share a bittersweet memory with others.”
“Social media can be a very toxic place sometimes and this is one of the first comment sections I have seen that is extremely positive and heartwarming,” she adds. “It is a bunch of strangers crying together and remembering bittersweet memories.”
“I hope people are reminded to live in the moment and enjoy where you are now because it has gone much quicker than any of us realize,” she continues. “Something I am working on is living in the moment because I am often looking to the future all the time and then end up missing a time that I did not appreciate enough. No matter where you are right now, you will most likely feel nostalgia for it in 5, 10, or 20 years.”
