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Greater Ann Arbor's premier choice for specialized in-home pet care + more
Lorrie Shaw, CFFP, AHPC practitioner began her career 20 years ago caring for area companion animals. During that time, she has raised the bar in the pet care industry with knowledge, professionalism and phenomenal communication skills as a mentor and coach to fellow pet care professionals across the country.
She shares her insight and stories as a writer who, even during her time as a regular contributor to AnnArbor.com & MLive, made it her mission to elevate the conversation about many pet-related topics, especially the human-animal bond. These days, her writing can be found twice-monthly on her blog, Animals Unfolded. As frequent podcast co-host and guest, she broaches the topics beyond the human-animal bond including ethology, animal behavior and health as well as the impact of empathetic distress in the pet care industry, with veterinary and animal shelter and rescue staff, and the necessity of practicing self-care at each level.
Lorrie isn't your average pet care professional. Despite the industry's availability of educational training, she saw from her experience in the field that in order to serve families optimally with the areas of increasing demand with the geriatric pet population, not to mention animal hospice and behavior, she needed to blaze her own trail.
Highly-skilled in all aspects of pet care, Lorrie has earned the distinctions of Certified Professional Pet Sitter, Fear Free Certified Professional, Dog Bite Safety Educator and Certified Pet Loss and Grief Companion, the latter of which allows her to work in a professional capacity with families coping with the emotional toil with pets in end-of-life, as well as individuals seeking professional Companioning in their journey through pet loss and grief. Her professional training didn't end there: her educational background also includes that as an end-of-life doula for humans. It’s no surprise, though, that her wheelhouse is the care of pets in their senior & geriatric years, as well as pets of any age who are receiving palliative & hospice care under a vet's oversight -- a field that she is an industry leader in. As an end-of-life doula for companion animals, she has the respect and confidence of local clinical, house call & hospice veterinarians as well as veterinary specialists.
She is a current and active member of Pet Professional Guild, International Association of Animal Hospice & Palliative Care, Pet Sitters International, International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (supporting member), Doggone Safe, Association for Pet Loss & Bereavement and the National End Of Life Doula Alliance (NEDA).
Lorrie also holds certifications in Veterinary Infectious Disease Management as well as Pet First Aid/CPR -- including the newest veterinary CPR guidelines. She is big believer in ongoing education, and in 2023 earned her Certificate of Completion for the Animal Hospice Certification Curriculum (scoring above 90%), facilitated by Animal Hospice Group. Lorrie participates in countless on-site class certification modules and webinars offered by the professional organizations that she is a member of. She enthusiastically travels to participate in several conferences & workshops, including those facilitated by Fear Free Pets, Debbie Jacobs of Fearful Dogs & Coleen Ellis of The Pet Loss Center.
