Lap of Love Veterinary Hospice & In-Home Euthanasia - Norfolk County

Lap of Love assists families and their pets throughout Central Massachusetts, MetroWest, and Norfolk County, including Worcester, Framingham, Milford, Franklin, Attleboro, and Taunton. Our experienced veterinarians provide compassionate care for your dog or cat, including in-home euthanasia and hospice. Veterinary hospice specifically addresses comfort care and pain management for pets. Our telehospice service allows you to speak with a doctor to discuss your pet's quality of life. We can also assist with some exotic pets too. Lap of Love Veterinary Care Coordinators are here to answer your questions 24/7, every day of the year, including weekends and holidays. Appointments with our veterinarians are scheduled throughout the week, please call for availability. Sometimes pets take a turn for the worse overnight or in a short amount of time, so we do our best to accommodate same day appointments with a few hours notice, but cannot guarantee that. If this is a medical emergency, please contact your local veterinarian or one of the emergency clinics listed in the Local Resources section

2009: Dr. Dani McVety started Lap of Love Veterinary Hospice shortly after graduating from veterinary school while practicing emergency medicine in her hometown of Tampa, FL. After helping countless families through the loss of their pets, she felt an immense inspiration to combine her previous experience as a human hospice volunteer with her love of people and a desire to make the experience of losing a pet as peaceful as it can possibly be. 2010: Lap of Love grew quickly as word spread about a new way for pet parents to say goodbye. Dr. McVety began receiving calls and emails from families and veterinarians nationwide looking for similar services in their area. It was quickly apparent that Lap of Love was meant to be bigger than just Tampa, Florida! Dr. McVety contacted her good friend and veterinary school classmate, Dr. Mary Gardner, to help expand Lap of Love nationwide. Dr. Gardner immediately felt the connection with Lap of Love's service and joined as co-founder, applying her decade of software design experience to lead the development of the company's proprietary practice management software. 2011: Lap of Love welcomes their first veterinarian outside Florida, in Charlotte, North Carolina. 2013: Lap of Love expands to serve 20 states across the country. Drs McVety and Gardner teach multiple hours at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine's first End of Life course offered to senior veterinary students, focused specifically on hospice and euthanasia of all animal species. They have helped teach the course every year since. 2015: As our service grew, we knew our doctors needed help answering phone calls from families requesting assistance. In 2015 we established our dedicated Support Center with a team of compassionate professionals to assist families over the phone. 2017: Lap of Love's team grows to over 100 doctors nationwide! Lap of Love has been honored to sit at the bedside of more than 100,000 pets and their families, assisting in the peaceful and loving transition of euthanasia since the company was founded in 2009. 2018: Lap of Love expands to serve 30 states across the country. Lap of Love receives the first-ever Innovative Practice of the Year award from the Veterinary Innovation Council, a division of the North American Veterinary Community. Lap of Love is awarded Best in Show by the Veterinary Innovation Council for receiving more votes than any nominee in any category. 2020: As COVID descended upon the world, Lap of Love quickly rolled out a Telehospice service, providing telemedical advice to families nationwide via an in-depth Quality of Life conversation with our hospice veterinarians. Lap of Love's team grows to over 200 doctors nationwide! 2021: Lap of Love launches dedicated Pet Loss Support services for anyone who has experienced the loss of a pet. Lap of Love launches a Senior Pet Care blog. 2022: Lap of Love is featured in the award-winning documentary "The Hardest Day." The film focuses on the power of the human-animal bond in its last moments and those who help navigate along the way. 2023: Lap of Love's team grows to over 300 doctors nationwide! Lap of Love launches an internal Certified Veterinary Hospice and Euthanasia Practitioner course. This is the most rigorous certification process solely focused on end-of-life veterinary care at this time

Mission — We believe all pets deserve peaceful end-of-life experiences. Lap of Love is a network of veterinarians around the country with the goal of empowering every owner to care for their geriatric pets. Our philosophy centers around the human-animal bond and the need for that bond to be as undisturbed as possible during this most difficult time. The desire to bring this important service to families across the United States is slowly being realized as additional veterinarians begin working under the same philosophy. At Lap of Love, we firmly believe in the inherent value of diversity and inclusivity and are committed to providing our services with respect, compassion, dignity, and equality for all families that reach out to us!