Animal hospice eases pain for pets, owners
Tammy Wynn pushed her father’s body into a crematory furnace. She pressed a button, heating it to more than 1,000 degrees, and watched as the flames turned her father, a World War II veteran, into bone fragments.
Along with her grief, she felt a strange sense of peace. Because she knew what was happening. She could see it.
A year earlier, in 2003, her 18-yearold cat died. Cagney had traveled around the country with her, as she left jobs in therapy and hospital administration to advise businesses in New York and New Jersey.
Then, she took her cat to the veterinarian.
“It’s time,” she was told.
And that was that. Cagney was euthanized; Wynn wasn’t allowed to watch.
Wynn’s father, who she called her best friend, was diagnosed with cancer a few months later. He spent six months in hospice before his death. In many ways, it was the most painful time of Wynn’s life. But in some ways, because of the support hospice provided, her cat’s death left her more emotionally scarred than her father’s.
When Cagney died, she looked for support groups. She found none. And when she Googled animal hospice, she found nothing like that existed.
So, she created one.
At 50 years old, Wynn went back to school to become a licensed veterinary technician. She also worked in human hospice. Six years after her father died, she opened Angel’s Paws, one of the first pet hospices in Ohio.
‘You were our first baby’
What Wynn created mirrors human hospice. Vets are available 24/7 and will make visits to your home. The process becomes about the pets’ pain management and comfort, not curing them.
Animals could be in the program for days, months or years. It costs $650 for hospice care up to a year. Home euthanasia and a private cremation can cost between $500 and $600.
About 100 animals are currently enrolled in their hospice program. During the pandemic, they’ve helped more than 700 pets. Typically, they’ll bring dogs a Mcdonald’s hamburger for their last meal. And after an animal dies, they’ll take it away in a 4-foot stretcher.
In silver Prius cars, with license plates that say things such as “Gr8 Pet” and “Soul Pet”, the animals are taken to a Blue Ash facility. There, Wynn adjusts a sign hanging on the bathroom door. “Cat People,” the sign says. The restroom beside it has a fire hydrant on a sign that says, “Dog People.”
In another room, which Wynn calls the chapel, light shines through a stained-glass window. On a desk in front of the window, there’s a wooden urn containing a dog’s remains. A family will stop by in a few minutes to pick it up. Next to the box are clippings of Dudley’s fur and a paw-print ornament.
People are invited to write about their beloved pet inside of a memory book in the Angel’s Paws chapel, in Blue Ash. Angel’s Paws is a service that provides end of life service for pets.
On the other side of the room is a notebook, full of hand-written messages. Messages that show loss is loss. Messages that show sometimes we need help getting through it:
“Maggie, You were our first baby. Thank you for being my best friend.”
“Isabelle, I’ll never be the same without you.”
‘I didn’t feel alone anymore’
At some point, Shannon Petree will visit the chapel to pick up the remains of her cat, Pete, who has lymphoma. He’s in hospice care now.
The coronavirus had already taken Petree’s work when her cat got sick in July. She cried for 45 minutes before calling Angel’s Paws, because she thought it was the end. She thought it was goodbye to the cat who could open doors by himself, who she nearly named Stud because of his sturdy frame and who made a habit of appearing on Zoom calls.
She felt better once she made the call. “I didn’t feel alone anymore,” Petree said.
A few weeks ago, Petree thought Pete was going to die. She’d been to multiple vets, and because of COVID-19 restrictions, she handed him off in the parking lot. She didn’t want it to end like that.
Recently, Pete sat in her lap for an hour outside.
Wynn counted the cat’s breaths as they talked. About how Pete, named after the tennis player Pete Sampras, wouldn’t eat a few weeks ago. About the medicine they started putting on his ears, instead of shoving a pill down his throat. And about how they shaved a small spot on his back, to place the medicine, when his ears became too sensitive.
Pete turns 15 in September. And because of Angel’s Paws, Petree is sure he will make it until then. But if he doesn’t, she’ll know who to call.
Back in Blue Ash, past the restrooms and a few medical offices is the crematorium. The furnace is set to 1,604 degrees. Before cremation, animals are kept across the hall in an air-conditioned room. In most vets, Wynn said, they’d be in a bag in the freezer.
Here, a cat is on the counter. It’s covered by a blanket, and its head rests on a pillow.