Animal Hospice & Palliative Care — A Partner For Vet Practices
You already know the gap exists. The appointment ends, the diagnosis is delivered, and a family leaves your practice carrying something enormous — a terminal prognosis, an escalating care burden, a pet whose needs are about to outpace what any clinical team can provide between scheduled visits. The forward-looking conversations about what’s coming, what palliative care actually requires, and what end-of-life might look like rarely happen in the time available. Families leave without a framework. And the gap between what they need and what veterinary medicine can realistically provide grows wider every week.
Telos exists in that gap. Not as a replacement for your team’s expertise, your relationships with your clients, or your medical direction — but as the credentialed, experienced non-medical presence that makes your hospice and palliative care recommendations achievable at home, sustainable over time, and fully supported between your appointments.
A reliable, skilled extension of your team — for the families who need more than any practice can provide alone.
What Your Practice Gains
Reduced compassion fatigue
When Lorrie is engaged, your most distressed clients have a skilled, experienced advocate absorbing much of that emotional weight. Your team’s bandwidth and morale benefit directly.
Better use of your clinical bandwidth
Lorrie handles the increasing demands of hospice and palliative care clients at home — freeing your team to focus on what only you can do.
Stronger adherence to comfort care plans
With professional in-home support, families follow through consistently — on medications, dietary protocols, mobility support, and the practical demands of escalating care.
Eyes and ears at home
Hospice vets frequently note that even a single overnight stay surfaces clinical observations that neither the family nor the veterinary team could have made otherwise. Lorrie identifies what matters — and communicates it clearly back to you.
In-home access your practice can't provide
Some pets cannot travel due to mobility limitations, size, or a guardian’s physical constraints. Lorrie’s presence creates opportunities for real-time assessment, protocol adherence, and meaningful support — right where the pet lives.
Comprehensive grief support for your clients
As a Certified Pet Loss & Grief Companioning Professional, Lorrie supports families through anticipatory grief, decision fatigue, end-of-life choices, and bereavement — so your clients are never left without support when your team can’t provide it.
No new hires. No stretched staff.
Referring a family to Lorrie requires nothing more than sharing her contact information. She handles everything from there — intake, assessment, care planning, and ongoing support.
Stronger client retention & relationships
Families who feel genuinely supported through their pet’s final chapter remember the practice that made it possible. They return — and they bring new pets when they’re ready.
About Lorrie Shaw, CAHP, CHPA
Lorrie Shaw is a Certified Animal Hospice Practitioner (CAHP) — credentialed through the Animal Hospice Group, graduated with honors in 2023 — and a Certified Hospice & Palliative Care Advocate (CHPA), among the first credentialed through the IAAHPC’s program in 2024. She is also a Certified Pet Loss & Grief Companioning Professional, Fear Free Certified Professional, and Certified in Pet First Aid & CPR, with over two decades in pet care — the last eleven years focused specifically on senior, geriatric, and hospice patients.
She has supported more than 100 families through a pet’s final months, weeks, days, and beyond — across a wide range of diagnoses including osteoarthritis/DJD, IVDD, chronic renal disease, laryngeal paralysis and GOLPP, congestive heart failure, degenerative myelopathy, GI disorders, and cancer. She is also highly experienced with pets assessed for generalized anxiety, fear aggression, and separation anxiety. All care is grounded in and directed by the veterinarian’s ongoing guidance.
SCOPE OF PRACTICE — FOR CLARITY
Lorrie is not a licensed veterinary professional. She cannot diagnose illness, treat disease, alter or create medical or comfort care plans, prescribe medications, or perform euthanasia. The veterinarian serves as medical director at all times — making all clinical decisions and directing the comfort care plan.
What she provides is the consistent, credentialed non-medical presence between your appointments: observing, communicating, coordinating, and making sure nothing falls through the cracks. She identifies clinical changes that warrant your attention and communicates them clearly — so when families reach you, you have the full picture.
What Lorrie Provides to Your Clients
The specifics depend on each family’s needs, the pet’s condition, and your team’s direction. But the core is consistent: Lorrie bridges the gap between what families need and what veterinary practices can realistically provide.
Integrated hospice support plans
Four levels of structured, ongoing support — from early palliative care through end-stage hospice — with regular check-ins, quality of well-being assessments, and direct communication back to your team. In-person in Greater Ann Arbor. Virtual anywhere in the U.S.
Overnight & continuous care
For medically fragile pets whose families need to be away — or where continuous overnight observation is clinically indicated. Two frameworks: overnight with day visits, or overnight continuous care with a 3.5-hour break only.
Respite care
Scheduled daytime or evening visits for families whose caregiving demands require relief. Particularly valuable for differently-abled guardians, single guardians, elderly guardians, and those managing complex medical regimens at home.
Medication & treatment support
Consistent, timely medication administration — including subcutaneous fluids, esophagostomy tube feeding, and complex or time-sensitive regimens. Delivered with Fear Free handling throughout. Caregiver coaching available for families managing these independently.
Environmental assessments & caregiver coaching
Practical, personalized home assessments addressing mobility, safety, hygiene, and quality of life. Coaching on recumbency care, comfort assessment, enrichment, appetite support, and adherence to dietary and medication protocols.
Communication & Coordination
Active liaison between families and veterinary teams — preparing families for appointments, communicating clinical observations clearly, and ensuring your team has the full picture at every point in the care continuum.
End-of-life support & coordination
Support for both hospice-supported natural death and humane euthanasia — in partnership with the veterinarian as medical director. Present at end-of-life appointments, assisting with aftercare coordination and memorialization.
Grief companioning
Private, one-on-one grief support rooted in Dr. Alan Wolfelt’s companioning philosophy — for anticipatory grief, active loss, and bereavement. Available virtually to families anywhere in the U.S. No group sessions. No judgment.
Service dog handlers
When a service dog receives a terminal diagnosis, the complexity for their handler is unlike any other end-of-life situation. The loss is not just of a beloved companion — it’s the loss of a working partner and source of independence. Navigating hospice care while simultaneously facing the necessity of onboarding a new service animal creates a grief landscape that is layered, urgent, and rarely well-supported by veterinary teams. Lorrie has the specialized knowledge, communication skills, and time to walk alongside these families in a way most practitioners cannot.
Elderly guardians
For many elderly guardians, a pet is their primary companion, their daily structure, and their most consistent source of emotional connection. A terminal diagnosis disrupts all of that simultaneously — while the physical demands of escalating care may exceed what they can manage alone, and their support network may be limited. The grief is compounded by isolation in ways that need specific, experienced support. Lorrie provides that — with the patience, communication skills, and time that most veterinary teams simply don’t have available.
THE TELOS LENDING LIBRARY
Established clients may borrow assistive harnesses, pee pads, lambswool bed pads, cooling mats, and other comfort care tools from Lorrie’s lending library for the duration of their pet’s hospice care — at no additional cost.
What Genuine Animal Hospice Looks Like in Practice
Animal hospice is a philosophy and program of care that addresses the physical, emotional, and social needs of pets in the advanced stages of a progressive or life-limiting diagnosis, disability, or age-related decline — alongside the psychosocial and grief support needs of their families. The focus is comfort, quality of life, and dignity. Not cure.
As in human hospice, genuine animal hospice care is delivered by an interdisciplinary team — with a licensed veterinarian serving as medical director, making all clinical decisions and directing the comfort care plan. The broader team ideally includes vet techs and assistants, rehabilitation and complementary therapy professionals, Certified Animal Hospice Practitioners, pet care providers, and grief support specialists. At its center: the human-animal bond.
A NOTE ON WHAT HOSPICE IS — AND ISN’T
In-home euthanasia and aftercare transport are valuable services. They are not, on their own, animal hospice. Genuine hospice care begins at the time of a serious or life-limiting diagnosis — not at the end — and involves ongoing, structured, interdisciplinary support throughout the pet’s decline.
Practices that provide the full hospice model are identifiable by their language, their structure, and their use of an interdisciplinary framework. They are — and should be — relatively rare. Recognizing the difference is one of the most important things a referring practice can do for their clients.
Families who receive a terminal diagnosis and ask ‘what does hospice look like for my pet?’ deserve an honest, informed answer — and a clear pathway to the support structure that actually delivers it. That pathway is what Telos provides.
How Referrals Work
The referral process is intentionally simple. There is no formal intake form, no credentialing process for practices, and no administrative burden on your team. The most common pathway is straightforward: share Lorrie’s contact information with the family and let them reach out directly.
The simplest referral
Share Lorrie’s email with the family: telos.cares@gmail.com. That’s it. Lorrie handles intake, assessment, and care planning from there — keeping you informed as the medical director throughout.
When timing matters
The families who benefit most are those referred early — at the time of diagnosis, not at the point of crisis. The earlier the connection, the more meaningful and sustainable the support. If you’re uncertain whether a family is ready, refer anyway. Lorrie will meet them where they are.
When you want to connect directly
If you’d like to discuss a specific case, explore how a collaborative arrangement might work for your practice, or simply get to know each other before referring families — Lorrie welcomes that conversation. Reach out directly to arrange an in-person or virtual meeting.
When a family doesn't follow through
Not every family acts on a referral immediately — and that’s okay. Planting the seed is enough. When they’re ready, they’ll reach out. Having Lorrie’s contact information means the pathway is there when the moment arrives.
All services are contracted and compensated directly by pet guardians — there is no financial arrangement between Telos and referring practices.
Service Area & Availability
In-person — Greater Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, Dexter, Chelsea, Pinckney, Ypsilanti, Canton, Northville, Plymouth, Whitmore Lake, Howell, Brighton, South Lyon & surrounding areas. All in-home services provided at the family’s residence — including presence for housecall veterinarians and rehabilitation specialists.
Virtually — anywhere in the U.S.
Integrated hospice support plans, senior and geriatric support, grief companioning, and caregiver coaching are all available virtually — for families anywhere in the United States, regardless of location.
Scheduling — Seven days a week
Available for scheduled services seven days a week. 24/7 crisis support for families actively enrolled in hospice support plans at higher levels.
Veterinary appointments — Present when it matters
Lorrie can accompany families to brick-and-mortar veterinary appointments or arrange transport when a guardian is unable to attend — ensuring clear, accurate communication at every visit.
If something here resonated — if you can picture a client on your roster right now who needs more than your practice can provide alone — the next step is simple. Reach out. Whether you’d like to refer a family directly, discuss a specific case, or simply get acquainted before taking that step, Lorrie welcomes the conversation.
This work is better when it’s collaborative. Your clients deserve the full continuum of care. And the families who receive it — the ones who are truly supported through every stage of what’s ahead — will remember the practice that made it possible.
Ready to connect?
Email is the best first step — for a referral, a case discussion, or an introduction. Lorrie personally reads and responds to every message — typically within a couple of hours, and always the same day.
In-person and virtual meetings available for practices interested in a more formal introduction.
The families who need this most are already in your waiting room. They just don’t know yet that this level of support exists.