Our Story of Providing Compassionate End-of-Life Pet Care Since 2011
Hampton Roads Veterinary Hospice is proudly family-owned and operated. Every member of our veterinarian practice has a personal drive to offer compassionate and supportive care to pet owners in their time of need. We are committed to offering each family a personal and caring experience during their pet’s final days.
The History of Hampton Roads Veterinary Hospice
Dr. Tyler Carmack, founder of Hampton Roads Veterinary Hospice, is a Virginia Beach native and attended Frank W. Cox High School. She attended N.C. State University for both her undergraduate degree and DVM training. After graduation from veterinary school, she completed an internship in small animal medicine and surgery at Friendship Hospital for Animals in Washington, DC, and an ophthalmology internship in New York. She has also worked as an emergency clinician at Palm Beach Veterinary Specialists in West Palm Beach before returning home to Virginia Beach.
Dr. Carmack founded Hampton Roads Veterinary Hospice in 2011 and has practiced exclusively hospice and palliative care for over a decade.
She has served on the Board of Directors of the International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care (IAAHPC) since 2016 in a variety of roles and often lectures about Veterinary Hospice and Palliative Care. Dr. Tyler currently holds certifications in animal hospice and palliative care, veterinary acupuncture, Chinese food therapy, and Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine End-of-Life care. Her professional interests include pain management and teaching.
In 2021, Hampton Roads Veterinary Hospice joined the Caring Pathways family of end-of-life care veterinary practices! Caring Pathways is a family-owned practice based in Denver and the first practice in the nation to achieve AAHA’s Accreditation for end-of-life care. In 2022, we also received our AAHA accreditation! Caring Pathways aligns with our mission and values so completely that we joined forces to provide enhanced services to the Hampton Roads community.
The Hampton Roads Veterinary Hospice Mission
Our mission is to serve the hearts and minds of pet owners by providing peaceful, compassionate end of life care for their pets with honesty, integrity and respect in the comfort of their home.
Our purpose is to provide every pet owner the opportunity to receive gentle, compassionate care and to help you deal with the end of life issues surrounding your pet, including in-home medical assessment and consultation services, in-home palliative and hospice care, and in-home pet euthanasia, as well as body care, appropriate memorialization services, and helping guide you in your grieving process to the best of our ability, which may include outside resources.
What to Expect with In-Home End-of-Life Veterinary Care
Blog Post
The Hampton Roads Veterinary Hospice Outlook on End of Life Care
Passion for what we do lives in the hearts of each one of our team members, forming the foundations of who we are and what we do. Every member of our team has a personal drive to offer compassionate and supportive care to pet owners in their time of need. We are committed to offering each family a personal and caring experience during their pet’s final days.
What sets us apart?
The Hampton Roads Veterinary Hospice team operates on a very personal level, ensuring that we are doing exactly what our community needs for their pets. We work hard to be accessible 7 days a week because we believe it is so important for our team to be available whenever we are needed. Our team understands the importance of caring for each person in need of our services and we make every effort to respond to calls as quickly as possible, as part of our commitment to excellent service.
Words from one of our veterinarians, Dr. Mavi Graves:
“As an end-of-life veterinarian, providing as smooth and peaceful of a transition as possible for pets in the comfort of home is a vocation I honestly look forward to every day. I still cry a little bit almost every day supporting pets and pet families on what may be the saddest day of their life, but I am always honored to help families give their pets the gift of a good death at the end of a life well-lived. As one end-of-life vet put it, ‘Where there is grief, there is great love, and all day long I’m looking at that love.'”