We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tammy Wynn. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tammy below.

Tammy , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

True story! When I hired my first full time veterinarian, Dr. Kate Smith, she fell in love with our mission and the way we delivered our service, but she said “Tammy”, locking eyes with me, “what you are doing here at Angel’s Paws is different…no, Tammy, I mean it’s RADICALLY DIFFERENT”…as she banged her hands on her knees. We have laughed about that a million times, but there is a reason our approach is radically different. The design of the service Angel’s Paws delivers was born from a pet parent’s heart and not from the model of traditional veterinary medicine.

Angel’s Paws does complete end of life care for pets and the people who love them. And while traditional veterinary medicine has done end of life care ever since its inception, the way we at Angel’s Paws deliver end of life care is radically different.

How so? For starters, we deliver end of life care “at home.” Much like human hospice, we recognize that when a pet is facing the end stage of their life, whether due to disease or old age, traveling away from their home becomes even more uncomfortable for them. Most pets historically are not fans of going to the vet’s office even when they are feeling well, let alone when they are not feeling well. Arthritic pain can make getting in and out of the car (or cat carrier) painful, and even the jostling of the ride itself can make it difficult for them to get comfortable. By reversing this, and bringing treatment to the pet at home, spares the pet an immense amount of both physical and emotional suffering. Suffering is the number one thing pet parents report wanting to help their pet avoid. Delivering end of life veterinary care, through pet hospice and in home euthanasia are two services that help pet parents minimize their pet’s suffering.

Which leads to another approach we take at Angel’s Paws that is radically different. Just like in human hospice, the entire family is identified as the patient. The patient is called the “unit of care” and includes the terminally ill pet AND their entire human family of caregivers. In traditional medicine, the patient is the pet and there is little training given to veterinary professionals on managing the humans attached to the pet. As I was just describing the very act of bringing care to the pet at home allows pet parents to begin managing one of their greatest concerns, minimizing their pets suffering. But, Angel’s Paws goes much further than this by providing care to the entire family. Because there is a pet and humans included in the unit of care, to do this justice, an interdisciplinary team is employed. The licensure to care for pets and people are different, so Angel’s Paws hires both veterinarians and registered veterinary technicians to care for the pet, as well as licensed human mental health professionals to care for the humans. Angel’s Paws’ commitment to client centered care is more than just talk. We walk the walk with a properly licensed and trained interdisciplinary team. This is an expensive endeavor to provide care to both ends of the leash (or cat carrier) but it is an investment that yields great satisfaction for everyone involved.

We call our pet hospice program, our Pet Parent Peace of Mind Program, because that is what we actually deliver to pet parents. Once their pet is enrolled with us they have unlimited access to telehealth seven days a week, 365 days a year. Again, this is very different than traditional veterinary medicine. Most veterinary offices are unable to stay open seven days a week, and therefore, refer families to an emergency clinic when they are closed. While we whole heartedly support emergency clinics for pets that are experiencing an emergency, pre-planning so the pet can be at home for a predicted end of life experience allows the pet parent to create an environment that is more serene than that of a busy emergency room to say goodbye to a beloved furry family member.

Angel’s Paws partners with 100 veterinary clinics in the Cincinnati area to offer pet parents that level of care and control as they face admittedly the hardest stage of their relationship with their pet. This is another thing that makes us radically different. We are very collaborative with veterinarians who partner with us. They recognize that we are not competing with them, but instead, are an extension of them, providing a level of care for their clients at home that would be difficult for them logistically to do. Additionally, we offer free training sessions at their staff meetings covering such topics as compassion fatigue, helping a family navigate the waters of a difficult diagnosis, and helping families know “when it is time.”

In addition to traveling to the pet to deliver pain management and symptom control through the pet hospice program, in home euthanasia is also provided. Again, designed by a pet parent, the entire experience is radically different. There are things that pet parents are unable to assess easily as they research which service to use to help their pet transition from this life to the next. If they simply look at price, they are overlooking things that are likely important to them. For example, there are several different types of medications that can be used for the process of euthanasia. At Angel’s Paws, we do the two-step method, meaning we provide a first dose of medicine that relaxes the pet and takes them into a state of sedation, so they don’t feel anything about the second medication. Medications, however, have different costs. Our service utilizes only very high-end medications that predictably do not have harsh side effects as the pet is becoming sedated. It effects what we charge, because as a pet parent myself, I know that most pet parents would opt for a higher end medication if it would make things easier on their pet. So we don’t make that an option, it is automatically included in our fee, but it is something that most pet parents wouldn’t think about as they are “shopping” for a service to help their pet.

More radical differences, once a pet has made their transition, if the family opts for cremation, the pet travels back with our team member to our facility for cremation. We provide the cremation ourselves, giving the pet parent a knowing of who will be caring for their baby until they are able to receive them back. In a couple of days, the family is notified and invited to come in to privately receive their pet’s ashes back in one of our beautiful chapels. Our families absolutely love this experience and love the opportunity to allow their pet to begin to teach them and their children the circle of life. I have written a children’s book called “Gaining Wings” to help families prepare for the loss of a beloved furry family member. This book was derived from my 13 years of experience helping families on this journey.

One of the most important and often overlooked radical differences about Angel’s Paws is the fact that we understand grief. Grief for the humans but also grief for the sibling pets. We offer free pet loss support groups for the humans as well as one to one grief counseling, but what do we do about the sibling pets? This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. There are different types of pet loss and one of the hardest forms of pet loss is when a pet goes missing. Pet parents report an angst that is nearly debilitating when their pet is lost. Not knowing where they are and what happened to them is extremely anxiety producing and depressing. Our brains crave closure and when a pet goes missing, we aren’t able to have that. Which brings me to sibling pets. Pets within the house form their own pack. Whether they are buddies or not, they are bonded. Their relationship can range from being aware of each other and steering clear, to being inseparable soul mates. With traditional veterinary medicine, typically at the end of a pets life they are taken out of the house to the vets office for euthanasia. From there, the pet is picked up by a cremation company and the ashes are usually returned to the vet’s office in a few days. The family has that difficult drive to and from the vet’s office, but for the sibling pets at home, the pet just goes out the door with their parents and when the parents return they don’t have their sibling pet with them. In other words, their sibling pet just went missing. With our radical approach of bringing care to the pet in their home, it means the entire family, including sibling pets have an opportunity to pay their respects, know what happened and have closure. Sibling pets will still grieve, but it generally does not produce the panicked searching pet parents describe on about day three for sibling pets when the pet just disappears out the door to the vet’s office. We absolutely know that we are providing a great service to sibling pets by providing the service at home so they can also be part of it. Sibling pets spend a lot of time together, so not overlooking their needs in this process is something that again makes Angel’s Paws, bang your hands on your knees worthy of, “RADICALLY DIFFERENT.”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I always say that Angel’s Paws was born from a pet parents heart. That is because before I created Angel’s Paws, I was a pet parent. I had two cats, Cagney and Lacey. (I guess you know what TV show I was watching in the 80’s) I didn’t have human children, so they were truly my children. When they were 18, Cagney’s health began to fail. Unfortunately, my veterinarian did not have much of a bedside manner and abruptly told me it was time to euthanize Cagney. This was my first time to face this decision on my own and I asked her what was wrong with Cagney, (secretly hoping she was going to share a treatable diagnosis) but instead she said, “She’s 18,” I was shocked by this and I said “well there has to be something more than just her age because Lacey is also 18 and it is clearly not time for euthanasia for her.” She again, abruptly just said “it’s time.” I went home with Cagney to try to get my head around this and clearly Cagney was failing. She was so weak I had to help her walk down the hall to get to her litter box. Fortunately, the vet did come out to my house for the euthanasia, and afterward she took her for cremation. Because this was my first time going through this I was so focused on the euthanasia decision that I had not done any research on what happens afterward. Later I discovered that Cagney was taken back to her clinic, put in a bag and put in the freezer awaiting pick up for cremation. I did not know that was going to happen and discovered this long after I received her ashes back and could not do anything to change it. I was devastated. By training I am a licensed mental health therapist, and I was experiencing a level of pain through this grief that was excruciating. I looked around online for support and found none. I toughed it out on my own. A year later, my father was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He wanted hospice care and we had that for the last six months of his life. It was amazing. He had pain management and symptom control at home and the family had education and emotional support. Hospice made the loss of my father manageable. My story has a spiritual component as well. I had considered myself an apathetic agnostic up until this point, because not only didn’t I know for sure if there was a God, but I figured if there was I would go to Heaven because I was a good person. But my father died on April 4, 2004 and the next day on April 5, I got a sign, and in a light switch moment I knew there was a God, I knew there was a Heaven and I knew my dad was in it. As a new believer, I said, “Oh God, you are really there, whatever you want from me you got it.” He didn’t make me wait long, the next day on April 6, at 3:30 in the afternoon two words were divinely put in my heart, and the two words were “animal hospice.” While I have two master’s degrees (in social work and hospital and health administration) and I consider myself a pretty smart girl, I assure you those two words did not come through my brain. I googled animal hospice and in April 2004, those two words did not come up together. It was at that time I realized I was supposed to invent it. And that’s what I set about doing over the next six years. I closed down my consulting business, and took a job with a human hospice as a social worker so I could really learn hospice so I could bring it to the pet world. While there I saw the key role the nurse plays in hospice and while I knew I could provide the emotional support to families I felt I needed to go back to school to become a registered veterinary nurse. So at the age of 50 that’s just what I did. While in the last year of my program, I purchased the building that would become Angel’s Paws. And then I purchased my first crematory and had it installed 2 months after I graduated from the program. Finally, all of my preparations were finished and I opened my service as the sole employee, April 6, 2010. Six years to the day and hour when those two words were placed in my heart. From there I designed exactly how we deliver our service today. It was through my eyes as a pet parent, now armed with the knowledge of how to deliver the program medically, Angel’s Paws was born.

Any advice for managing a team?

One of the things that makes our veterinary practice unique is that it is owned by a licensed human therapist. Catering to our staff and making sure that they have a healthy environment to work in is job one for me. If I treat them exceptionally well, then I place them in a position to be able to treat our clients exceptionally well. My husband always says people can’t rise up to low expectations. Our business is very demanding and emotionally challenging because we are helping people at their hardest moments with their beloved pets. Our team gets our mission at the heart level and they show up every day to support our clients and their team mates. It’s not easy work, and they know it and I believe they have a sense of pride in being able to be there for our clients and each other. Caregiving is something that my team does well. Caregivers are notorious, however, to put everyone else first and not take care of themselves. So we get in front of that by proactively encouraging self care. We provide an annual self care bonus, for them to spend on taking care of themselves. We take it a step further and ask them to report back what they spent it on and we create a book which can then be used to inspire each other with ideas for self care. We offer monthly training to all team members on a variety of topics that enhance their quality of life both at work and at home. These include communication skills, conflict management, and other techniques for emotional well being. Once a quarter we gather for a meal and an informal group therapy session to learn from experiences and to empower each other with emotional support and encouragement.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

It was 2013 and Angel’s Paws was just three years old. This was an entrepreneurial endeavor that was started from scratch. There was no other service anywhere in the country that offered all of the services we did under one roof. We offer in home pet hospice, in home euthanasia, private cremation, free pet loss support groups and one to one grief counseling. There are businesses that offer some of those services individually, but still to this day, Angel’s Paws is the only one that offers all of those services under one roof. So it was a true entrepreneurial endeavor and was keeping me quite busy. But as I was trying to push this boulder straight up a hill and get the service really going, I was diagnosed with stage three metastatic breast cancer. Due to my spirituality I did not experience a moment of angst with the news of that diagnosis. I had actually found the lump in my arm pit the year before but two doctors said it was just a fat pad. A year later I felt a lump in my neck where it had moved to my lymph nodes. The lessons I learned on that cancer journey were priceless. I was able to learn things and apply them to my business to make it better. Things that I could have never gotten to without that experience. The population I work with in my business are pets who have had dire diagnoses, surgeries, chemo, and radiation. Up until that time, I had been the picture of health and had not experienced the medical model from the other side as a patient. I got to see that when I was misdiagnosed I lived obliviously happy for a year working on my business not knowing I had cancer. I realized that pets are not burdened with the words associated with a diagnosis the way their pet parents are. I realized that I had always been the caregiver of the pet who was at the end of life and that the caregiver role actually may have it worse than that of the patient. I watched my husband be my caregiver and his job was much harder than mine. He was always wracking his brain trying to think of what could be done to make my treatment easier. And miraculously, the treatment they used for my cancer had just been approved for use. I was literally the first patient to receive it in my hospital. This treatment was a “designer drug” that fit like a key in a lock with cancer cells. Had I not been misdiagnosed the year before, the treatment they would have used on me would have left me with collateral damage in my body. I am celebrating 10 years post treatment this year. I have been able to take my business from helping 400 pets in 2013 to helping 3000 pets in 2022. Because of my personal journey, I have implemented many comfort protocols in my service that were never considered for pets. This diagnosis of cancer turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me and Angel’s Paws.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.angelspaws.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelspaws/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngelsPaws
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/angelspaws
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/angelspaws
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEgDuydRECgzvczn1p1PKNg
• Yelp: https://www.facebook.com/AngelsPaws

Image Credits
Brenda Pottinger took my headshot…Pottinger Photography