Tammy Wynn was inspired to found Angel’s Paws when she lost two loved ones…with two very different experiences. When her father died of cancer he had hospice and pain care while the family also received help through the process of dying and grief. “They took the most difficult day of my life and made it manageable…” she said.

However, when her 18 year old cat died, she was single, alone and grieving. There was no pet hospice care for her dying cat or end-of-life plan. There was also no help for Tammy as she grappled with the loss of her feline companion of 18 years.

It was a lonely and spiritually confusing place and that’s when she received the calling to provide pets and their owners with the same end of life care and counseling that our human loved ones and their families receive. With that, she left her successful career as a consultant and began the 6 year trek to prepare for and open one of the first pet hospice’s in the country and the first practice in the world that provides complete end of life services from the time the terminal illness in the pet is diagnosed through the array of aftercare services.

Tammy is a licensed therapist with over 30 years experience. During the 6 years of preparation to open Angel’s Paws, she took a job as a hospice social worker to fully understand hospice and its operation in order to bring it to the animal world. In the course of her work there, she realized that while a multi-disciplinary approach is used to deliver hospice care, the role of the nurse is pivotal. It then became clear that she needed to go to school to become a registered vet tech (RVT), the nursing equivalent in veterinary medicine, to truly bring the full spectrum of pet hospice to a reality. After graduating in 2009 from the University of Cincinnati, she began creating a space in Blue Ash to deliver this service to a much overlooked population. While all of the pet hospice and euthanasia services are provided in the pet’s own home, the facility in Blue Ash offers a place where healing can begin through such services as private cremations, funeral and memorial services, grief counseling and support groups.