Lauren Calvey A Gentler Goodbye For Pets

Your pet is family, but when they die the world can push you into fast choices while you’re still in shock. We talk with Lauren Calvey  from Aspen Meadows Pet Aquamation and Memorial Services about what a slower, more human approach to pet aftercare can look like and why “aftercare matters” isn’t just a slogan when you’re grieving.

Laura breaks down aquamation, also known as alkaline hydrolysis or water cremation, and how it differs from traditional flame pet cremation. We get practical about what the process involves, why it can feel gentler, and what families often don’t realize about the typical chain of custody after euthanasia, including refrigeration, transport, and multiple handoffs. Her core message is simple: you deserve trust, transparency, and the chance to understand your options before you say yes to anything.

We also talk about pet memorial services that mirror what many families expect for human funerals: time for a viewing, a goodbye session, paw prints, keepsakes, and even creative memorial possibilities that some people are afraid to ask for. Laura shares how her background in forensic medicine and years as a grief and trauma clinician shapes the way she supports families, especially when kids, partners traveling home, or other pets need time to say goodbye too.

If you’ve never heard of pet aquamation in Scranton, Clark Summit, or NEPA, this conversation is your starting point, including how pre-planning can reduce panic on the hardest day. Subscribe, share this with a fellow pet parent, and leave a review with one question you want us to answer next.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Pet Aftercare Hurts

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Joe Longo.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast Live. Are you in need of pet? It's this. I feel like this is just going to be a sad episode right from the beginning of pet cremation. It doesn't have to be. Are you in need of some pet cremation? But we have something for you today and some things that you may have never heard of before. And today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Laura Calvey of at of Aspen Meadows Pet Aquamation and Memorial Services. Lauren, I'm gonna try not to cry. How are you doing today? How are you doing? And I say that only because of my old my old pup that I have. How are you? Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

So if you can, could you tell us about Aspen Meadows Pet Aquamation and Memorial Services?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

I'd love

Aquamation Versus Flame Cremation

SPEAKER_00 1:03

to. So Aquamation. That's the first, you know, you said, oh well, Lauren's a cremation provider. First of all, aquamation is cremation, but it's alkaline hydrolysis or cremation by water. So most of the local crematories use flame cremation. We use water cremation. Why? Well, two processes that work well, both sanitary, both good. Uh I believe, and it's true, that water cremation is just gentler. The process is longer. There it's more operator heavy, meaning I go from loading the machine to emptying the machine to preparing the remains to pulverizing and making ash. While with flame, it's more like the animal goes in the retort, you rake out, you put in a you pulverize, you put in an urn. There's a little bit more to my process. I can give a little bit deeper.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

No, no. I'm curious though, how did you get into this line of work?

Laura’s Story And Pet Funeral Home

SPEAKER_00 2:10

So, first and foremost, uh, my husband and my family is Jennings Calvin funeral home in Scrantonary Cremation Care in Clark Summit, Pennsylvania. Um, I come from Philadelphia. I have a background in forensic medicine, and then I was a grief and trauma clinician for 13 years. I lost my job, and then I lost my service dog. So here I was in the mid in the midst of two pretty big losses, a job that I had for seven years, and my best friend, who was my dog. And here I was in a funeral home with an empty bay. And I said to my husband, what about cremation? You know, what about our animals? So we already have a human uh retort machine on site, but my my dog died tragically. I mean, and many people who have German shepherds know it happens quickly sometimes. And, you know, we were at the vet and he would have to be euthanized, and we were able to take him back to the funeral home, which gave me time to think, which gave me time to process, which gave me time to actually, you know, in the moment when your pet dies, you can't think of anything. You know, it's it's an incredible loss. And acting in that moment when I was at the vets, I just couldn't. So we took the dog home, but we wouldn't have been able to do it if I didn't have refrigeration. You know, now at this point, we don't refrigerate the people and the animals together. You know what I mean? Everybody is separate, but it gave me time to really pause. So when we went through it, my daughter was able to say goodbye to the dog. She was two and a half at the time. Our other dog was able to say goodbye. And also, this was a therapy dog in the funeral home. So the staff got to say goodbye. So when we wound up burying, because I didn't have the machine yet, um, and I didn't feel ready, you know, or comfortable really with cremation. I wanted to bury. So we he wound up, he's actually in our backyard. Um, and I said to my husband, I want every family to have this opportunity. That there's nothing wrong with flame cremation. There's, you know, there's it's just very different than what we do with Aspen Meadows. We are a full service pet funeral home. So what you do for people, we do for pets.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Wow. So then when you say that, because I introduce in like I can have a funeral for my beloved.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Absolutely can.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Oh my gosh, I love this so much because our pets really are part of our family, like huge parts of our family, right? And from losing, you know, other dogs in the past, and it just like it just ends with that like space. So that is such a a beautiful service that that you are all offering everybody. Um what are some of the myths, misconceptions about this this line of work with our with our our pet family members?

What Happens After The Vet

SPEAKER_00 5:02

That's a great question, though, because you know, our biggest what I focus on is our why. And what that is is do you really know what's happening to your pet after they're euthanized? Well, nothing is wrong with it. Okay, so there's nothing unsanitary, it's not bad or good, it's just not what we do at Aspen Meadows. Your animal gets bagged, your animal gets refrigerated, and we all use refrigeration, but your animal switches hands, they get put in a truck. Most of the local vets use Abbey Glen crematory, and that's in Quakertown. Okay, so there's a lot of local cremation. You know, there's a beautiful place in Avoka, you know, there's there's places all over, but they're not even being used. These animals are switching hands and being transported an hour and a half away and either brought back or sent back in a FedEx box. Again, nothing wrong. Okay, unsanitary. However, is that really what you want to do with your dog? That's okay. But we will, for free of cost, we will remove the go to the vets and bring your bet vet animal into our care. We allow for a time for the family to do a viewing. If you know, recently we had a client whose dog died tragically on Mother's Day and her husband was away. So we were reable to refrigerate. So when he came home, he was also able to say goodbye. Set up a memorial time where a goodbye session is. We offer, you know, paw prints, keepsakes. I would burn and hand carve all my urns. And it's just more of a we want it to be a time where you could really be out of the vets, or even if the animals die at home, out of the home and just have a time to just get it all in there and be able to process it and really have to say goodbye with it without saying boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, get out, your animal's dead. End of end of story. Now, vets are great, they don't take you out, but it's quick. So, how can your brain really think? Not when you're grieving. And that, you know, I was a clinician for 13 years, you know. It it's I understand the mechanisms of grief and working that quickly, you need time.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

Wow. So,

Marketing Through Trust And Transparency

SPEAKER_02 7:11

in this, you know, like all businesses, even the funeral home business, there's marketing is the is a huge part of everything. So, what are you all doing to market and attract your your clientele in this avenue?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

That's a good question because that's something um that I've really struggled with in this business because I really don't believe that Aspen Meadows is a billboard business. Um, it's you know, how do you market? Your pet dies, come to me. You know what I mean? It's very not a comfortable topic for people. So I really, you know, I do uh have a marketing for helping with my website, helping with be people being able to look things up, but I really rely heavily heavily on word of mouth. And once people call me and I discuss, it's usually, oh, okay. I mean, sometimes the aquamation um can throw people because people think of a washing machine or you know, but it's it's I always I'm I give it the in my underwear approach. Everything I do, my clients can see. You can see my backroom, you can see my machines, you can see the bones when I'm when I'm processing. Anything I do, I have nothing to hide because I think transparency is so important because we lose everything when we lose our animal. So why should I take that from you? Aftercare matters, death matters. So you already lost something like this. Why am I gonna take more? So, but this is something you have to talk to me. It has to be education, it has to be podcasts, it has to be edu knowledge. Um, and it's hard to market it. You know, I I do newspapers and stuff to say, hey, we're here, but it's it's it's not something that I feel like it is easy to market. Um, it has to be people have to hear and people have to talk, and you know, reviews are important, you know, just give it us giving us a shot. But when people come in, you know, and it's people are comfortable with the transparency. Um, and I'm and I I'm very authentic. What you see is what you get. That's kind of the person I am. I got that's 100% Italian Philadelphian me. Um so it's but it's it's really an honor when people allow me to do that for them.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

So have you ever thought about having a podcast about this?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

So we we did uh do a longer one getting to know the 570. And I had a a friend who did a podcast with Good Neighbor with you, Joe, and uh she goes, you know, this was really great. And it's I think that podcasts, you mean like a long, like a series podcast. I'm very new to it, but as I'm doing this, I think that podcasts are really a good way just to people to hear me out, you know. Just you don't have to choose it. There's nothing wrong with leaving your dogs at the vets, but are you sure?

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

I'm right here. What you see, I pick up, I process, I hand them back. And that's what Jennings Calvi is. We have our own crematory, we have our own operation facility, we have our own funeral home. Your loved ones come and we're it. And I think that's I think that's safety, and I think that's that's important, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

And it really is an education piece because until this, until I've heard of you, I didn't know of you, or that it even existed. Um, so I mean it really is a a great service outside of this.

Memorial Keepsakes Preservation And Research

SPEAKER_02 10:29

What are you doing for fun? How are how are you keeping yourself entertained when you're not working?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

So I I'm very outdoorsy. Um, I have a three and a half-year-old daughter, I have two white German shepherds, I have a husband, I have some good friends. I, you know, I like to I like to just be with my family. Um, right now, you know, we are an on-call business. So with the funeral side, the pet side, it's it is a lot of business, but it's nice to just we have a beautiful lawn, so we're outside a lot. I like to work out, I like to run. Um, you know, I'm very crafty. So I really like the earn process of being able to meet my clients and really feel out what they like and really sit down and be able. I'm a creative person, so to be able to bring that into this has been really cool. I am looking into some other things like taxidermy, uh, some uh preservation abilities within the thing that's so great about aquamation is you do get bones in hand. Um, so it's not with flame, they're gone. Um, but with aquamation, there is they're very soft and you have to be careful, but there is things that you can do. So I'm in the process of learning. So grief isn't cut and dry. So people want, and it doesn't make you weird, you know. Some people want to save teeth, some people want me to preserve bones. That's okay. I'm here for that. Um, so I spend I spend a lot of time researching my industry, you know. It's and I, you know, it my background is I was in a medical examiner's office. So it's I got you know, people say it's dark, but it's in grief is important. So being with my family, being with my friends, but I spend a lot of time research searching death and preservation of that kind of stuff. Um not a weird way, but in a in an educational, purposeful way.

Preplanning Options And Contact Details

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Right, right. So if there's one thing that you could tell our listeners that they should remember about Aspen Meadows, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Oh boy. Um trust and transparency. What you see is what you get. I'm not hiding. And your animals are just as important as your mother, as your father, as your children, because these they see everything we do. That's what people forget. People say, Oh my gosh, my dog died. I'm more sad than when my grandmother. Your grandmother doesn't watch you go to the bathroom, your grandmother doesn't want you shower, they don't watch you cry, they don't watch you get upset, they don't. That's just a part of it. And what I also say to families is through Aspen Meadows, you can pre-plan, which means you can call me and say, I have an older dog, or I don't want to face this in five years. We set something up, I keep a file, you call me, say, hey, Lauren, and I go, Okay. You know, there are options for pet aftercare that don't have to be in the moment when it happens, you move. That and that, so Aspen Meadows is you have a choice in death.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

That's wonderful. And how can our listeners learn more about Aspen Meadows and find you?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

So we do have a Facebook page. Um, we do have a website, Aspen Meadow Pet Service Services.com. Um, and I always say, call, you know, are you know the number? I can say it very slowly, or you could find a way. I don't know if I should say the number.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Yeah, go ahead, you can say it.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Uh 570-586-0811. And also tour. Call me and say, Lauren, can I see? Like, let me, I don't know if I want to make this choice. Let me see what acclamation is. Come on down. You know, I've I have people that called, and you know, I had a client who said, Oh my gosh, I it this seems great. You're so close to home, but I think of a washing machine. I said, You don't have to make a choice. You can go with the vet or you can go with me, but come, you're right up the street. Why don't you come in? They looked, they saw what I did. She goes, Okay, that's what I'm here for. It's nice to be able to have a little bit of choice when we don't have any. We don't we can't choose when things die, which is horrible. But aftercare matters, and you can have a choice here at Aspen Meadows.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Wonderful. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for your time and for sharing with us from everyone at the Good Neighbor Podcast. We wish you all of the success moving forward in the future.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Thanks so much, Joe. I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Thank

Closing And Nominate A Neighbor

SPEAKER_01 14:38

you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GMPNEPA.com. That's gmpnpa.com. Or call 544.