(by Jerry Shevick, CEO of Peaceful Pets Aquamation, Inc.)
This is a tough topic, but stick with me – it’s something that we all need to pay attention to! To tell the truth, we actually stumbled onto the whole topic of animal aftercare a few years back. One day, my wife and I happened to be in a shopping center where a vet’s office was located. Out of the back we see this – how can I put this kindly – a sort of unsavory looking guy carrying a garbage bag that clearly contained some kind of animal. Unceremoniously, the animal was tossed on top of a pile of other animals in the back of a pick-up truck. He fastened a tarp over them and rode off into the heat of a Los Angeles summer. It was one of those, “Did I really just see that?” moments. Out of admittedly morbid curiosity, and because we’re big dog owners, I did a little research into crematories. Big mistake! It wasn’t just the burning, but the total lack of respect for whom we feel are part of our family. And, if that wasn’t enough, we discovered how environmentally damaging it was. Fossil fuels are used to incinerate the bodies and that creates carbon monoxide, just like a car’s exhaust. And, what happens to the drugs, like chemotherapy drugs, when they are burned? Where do they go? It’s obvious to us now, but I think it was just something we never focused on.
The silver lining to this cloud is that it spurred us into action. We decided not just to offer something new to pet aftercare, but to actually change it. To revolutionize it. To get it out of the archaic cave it’s existed in for the last fifty years and to bring it into the light of the 21st century. What that meant was to create a company that would treat all pets the way we want our very own pets to be treated. And, so, Peaceful Pets Aquamation was born.
But let’s rewind. I had a successful career in television for 30 years. Having finally burned out, I wanted a new challenge. (I know, most middle aged guys are getting a sports car, but I take on pet aftercare! Go figure.) Around that time, we lost Scout, truly one of the greatest dogs we’d ever had. She was one of those special dogs that some of us are lucky to get in our lifetime. Unfortunately, she developed lymphoma when she was only six, but with the help of chemotherapy, she got another really good year. That year gave us time to reflect on what would happen after she died. And, I can tell you, it was sad. We had no alternative to cremation and didn’t know what else to do. Instead of honoring her life, we felt we’d let her down.
What also happened around that time, but sadly too late for Scout, was that a friend told us about Aquamation, a 100% green and far more dignified alternative to cremation.
What is Aquamation? It’s a natural process called alkaline hydrolysis. Using water flow, temperature and alkalinity, it is more like natural decomposition than any other method. It’s actually what occurs when a body is buried. Aquamation just accelerates the process. Your body even uses alkaline hydrolysis while you’re alive – it’s one part of how your intestines break down food into the nutrients that you need to survive. It all sounded great, but we wanted to know more. We found out that it wasn’t a new technology. In fact, it was the preferred method of tissue disposition with the most respected and influential institutions in the world. UCLA, Duke, the Mayo Clinic were just a few of the places alkaline hydrolysis was already the standard. In fact, it’s not just used for animals, it’s also used for humans (i.e. cadavers in Duke University’s School of Medicine). And, as if we were being led into a new career, we learned that a smaller machine had just been developed. Aquamation was now available for the regular pet owner.
What is amazing about alkaline hydrolysis, and obviously why major medical facilities use it, is that it is totally green. We have young children, and that became a huge factor in attracting us to starting up a business. Unlike cremation, there are no toxic emissions and no contribution to greenhouse gases. We’ve seen an Australian professor quoted that a cremated human body produces up to 350 lbs. of greenhouse gasses! Aquamation has a carbon footprint that is only one-tenth of what fire-based cremation produces. What’s even more staggering is that it uses one-twentieth of the energy, cutting natural gas use by 90%, carbon dioxide emissions by 90% and electricity by 66%. Think about this: the amount of energy a crematory uses to incinerate a cat would heat your house for three days in -15 degree weather. The comparison isn’t even close. You can drive a Model-T or a Prius.
The process of Aquamation, or alkaline hydrolysis, is very simple. The pet is placed in its own cubicle or container within a stainless steel cradle in order to protect the integrity of their remains. Then, across a 22 hour process, the heated water and alkali gently flow across the body. This reduces the body to its bones. In fact, we return about 20% more of the remains than cremation because the initial layer of bone isn’t burned off.
There isn’t a better way to honor your pet than Aquamation — to have it be a part of the circle of life. But, that didn’t solve all the problems that we found with pet aftercare. So, we took the time and looked at every step of the process. How could we make the whole thing more dignified? These animals are part of our family and ending their life like this just left us cold. We also were angry that we were actually being charged for someone to treat our pets like trash. What was going to be our solution? The first thing we did was to buy, customize, shelve and refrigerate a truck. We weren’t going to transport pets in the back of a pick-up truck. If we needed help getting them out of the vet’s office, we would use a stretcher, not rolling garbage cans or barrels (you heard me right – I’m not making it up). We don’t have the space problems vets have so we bought a giant walk-in refrigerator that’s shelved. No pet is crammed in or piled upon. We even take them out of the garbage bags. It’s a lot easier to see a pet as someone’s family when they aren’t wrapped in a trash bag. During every step of the process, we asked ourselves, “Does this meet the bar for how we want our pet to be treated?”
Death is not a comfortable topic for any of us. But, we’ve found that talking about it openly, taking time with our clients and making sure that our treatment is not just dignified, but personal, truly makes people feel better. We want to be part of the pet community, not the kind of creepy place your pet disappears to. To that end, we contribute to different animal charities and are supportive of many pet related causes. It seems like our office is often like Grand Central Station – we have an open door policy, so that anyone can see what we do.
At the moment, Peaceful Pets Aquamation is only available in Southern California; however, we hope that as knowledge spreads, we will be able to franchise our approach to aftercare across the country. We find that veterinarians are just like everybody else – they often resist change. We depend on pet owners, who want more dignified and environmentally safe aftercare for their pets, to tell their vets about us. Just like we do for any member of our family, it’s sometimes necessary to advocate on their behalf.
Innovation drives change in the business world. It’s common knowledge that veterinary medicine has progressed by leaps and bounds in the last 50 years. Cremation hasn’t really evolved except that it can now burn pets more effectively. That’s not the kind of innovation we want. My family always cremated our pets because there wasn’t another choice. And, we’re as guilty as anyone else – if you only have one choice it’s easy to not ask the hard questions.
In late 2013 we decided to “walk the talk”, so we opened Peaceful Pets Aquamation. What’s really amazing is that we feel more and more responsible for our clients’ pets with each passing day. When you treat someone’s family pet with dignity, you create a different kind of relationship with them. Crematories pick up their commodity and move on to the next. We make new friends. We give people closure or help them honor something important in their lives. I can’t tell you how rewarding that is. Anyone can buy an aquamation machine, but they can’t manufacture respect and dignity. That’s our advantage, because that’s who we are.
Learn more about Peaceful Pets Aquamation at their web site.
You can also find them at Yelp.com and Facebook.com under Peaceful Pets Aquamation.
(Jerry Shevick and his wife, Susan Booker, as owners, and animal activist Sherman Baylin, as associate, comprise the Peaceful Pets team, treating animals that have included tigers, black leopards, bobcats, hamsters, snakes, sheep, hedgehogs, goats, pigs, lizards, rabbits and birds.)
