“He was like an angel sent from above. His kindness and gentleness was exactly what I needed at one of the most anguished moments of my life. I will never forget him. God bless him!”
“I cannot thank you enough for making Bubba’s transition to the other side so tranquil and peaceful with all the people that loved him and that he loved surrounding him. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It’s said that angels are among us in all different forms. I now believe that.”
“‘Wonderful’ probably sounds like a strange word to use in the context of losing my beloved cat Edie, but I can truly say the whole experience was wonderful. Dr. Brad was so gentle and understanding during the whole process. Edie always hated trips to the vet and to have her pass in a familiar, calm place made all the difference in the world. I was able to hold her in my arms until the end and I can’t overstate how much peace of mind this has given me!”
Take a quick look at the testimonials for Dr. Brad Bates and you’ll see the words “compassionate,” “patient” and “angel” come up repeatedly. A practicing veterinarian, Dr. Brad gets these accolades for his work with Lap of Love, a company that specializes in animal home-care hospice and euthanasia.
PGN: Are you a Philadelphia native? BB: No, I’m originally from Queens, N.Y. PGN: Ah, concrete jungle where dreams are made of? BB: [Laughs.] Yes. It was fun. As a kid we had a very tight-knit community. Our apartment complex was a big garden surrounded by the buildings. Everyone knew each other but then the neighborhood got bad, so we moved to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., when I was about 11. PGN: That must have been a culture shock. BB: Yeah, in Queens our apartment was very small. We had problems with bugs and rodents, one of those neighborhoods. My mom cashed in everything she had — pension, savings, etc. — to get my brother and me to a better place with no drugs or gambling or fighting on the street corner. She bought a small house in a nice neighborhood and it was a shock to live just like regular people. It was lovely but we never really got used to it. I think we missed the chaos of New York and we moved back three years later. PGN: Did you have trouble fitting in? BB: I think it was too isolated. I was used to the city, where you could walk everywhere and be around different sorts of people. In Florida, it was just one community and you had to drive everywhere. At 11, I obviously didn’t have a license so it really inhibited what I could do. PGN: When my family moved to the suburbs (many moons ago) we had a hard time because of being mixed race. They couldn’t tell what I was but when they saw the rest of my family, there were some problems. BB: Yeah, my dad is Mexican and my mother is Jewish. Like you, I don’t really look like a person of color. Funny thing is, my brother definitely looks ethnic; during the winter most people think he’s Puerto Rican and in the summer they assume he’s black because he gets so dark. It’s interesting when people meet us as a family. They usually assume my father is stupid, which he is not. PGN: What was your first pet? BB: When I was a kid we had gerbils and hamsters. When I turned about 8 we got a dog.
PGN: Any extra-curriculars? Sports? BB: No, I’ve always been focused on academics. I never loved school, I just always knew what I wanted to do and what I had to do to get it. I was about 7 when I first told my mom that I wanted to be a veterinarian. Before that I wanted to be a gorilla. PGN: A gorilla? BB: Yes, when we had our kindergarten graduation they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said that I wanted to be a gorilla. PGN: [Laughs.] I’m assuming you didn’t choose that path. BB: No, no, I decided to become a vet instead and then never wavered from that path until I accomplished my goal. PGN: I’d probably be a gorilla just so I could have Jane Goodall hold me! BB: I met her and she actually held me. She did a little demonstration on how she communicated with apes on me. PGN: Where did you attend college? BB: I got a bachelor of science in animal sciences from Cornell University, a master’s in animal science and laboratory management from Drexel University and my veterinary degree from the University of Pennsylvania. PGN: What was the hardest thing about studying to be a vet? BB: I never liked school and you have to log a lot of classes to get there. People thought that I must love being a professional student but the truth is I hated it. But I knew I needed to grind through it to get to do what I really wanted.
PGN: What’s the most exotic animal you’ve worked on? BB: I guess that would be a bearded dragon. And I know nothing about reptiles. But I had to help him go to heaven so it wasn’t much of an issue. I mostly work with small animals, mainly dogs and cats. PGN: Tell me about Lap of Love. BB: It’s a network of veterinarians who do home-hospice and euthanasia. A few years ago, I’d just lost my job — the economy hit our occupation very hard — and I was looking in the paper for work. I happened to see an ad that read, “Are you unhappy being a general vet? Do you want to provide more compassionate care?” I always say it was meant to be. PGN: And what do you do? BB: Some hospice care but primarily we do euthanasia in the home. At first, it was a little bizarre because people’s reactions were so strong. Here you were euthanizing their dog or cat and they were so thankful and so positive about the experience. I realized that they knew it had to be done and were really thankful for the animal to be able to be at home in a place that was familiar and comfortable instead of a sterile clinic with strangers. I’d done it before in clinics and it just eats away at your soul, it’s really hard. I’ve seen animals start to salivate and shake because they were so nervous as you were getting ready to put them to sleep. Those you remember forever. Death is sad but humane euthanasia is not the negative part, it’s a wonderful gift. I’m very passionate about it. It’s been such a profound thing for me and such a lovely service that I feel obligated to do as much as I’m able to. PGN: What’s a story that moved you? BB: They all do, they really do. Everyone I meet has a strong connection with their dog or cat. I’ve devoted my life to being a vet because I love animals. I see an animal in the street and I love them. The people I meet, who choose this, are in line with how I feel, that their pets are part of the family. I’m impressed with the fact that they know that their animals can suffer and that they’re willing to do whatever they can to alleviate it. Though some people take it too far. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Hanging on and keeping an animal alive through multiple surgeries, etc., is not always in the best interest of the animal. I had one family who claimed that for religious reasons they couldn’t euthanize, so they kept their cat alive on life support with feeding tubes and catheters. It was terrible. I think they couldn’t bear to lose their animal so they used that as a reason to prolong. I finally said, “This is enough. We have to stop this. We might not be able to euthanize, but we are not obligated to do this. We can say no. It’s more humane to ‘pull the plug’ and let the cat die.” It’s one of the reasons I’m so appreciative of what I get to do now. Every time I do euthanasia, I think of that poor cat with all those tubes and am happy I’m able to peaceably end an animal’s suffering. PGN: Any crazy cat ladies? BB: We had one woman who would bring in groups of stray cats. The cats were really at death’s door. Every few months she’d come back using a different name with more cats. She looked like a vagrant but apparently actually had a lot of money and would pay each time taking cash out of her bra. The cats would come in with anemia because they had so many flea bites. As a doctor, you always have to tell people, “Here’s what we can do and what we recommend, here are the consequences and what it’s going to cost.” She would always insist on and pay for the treatment even when we didn’t recommend it. Some of the animals would pass away from the stress and it was always a battle for me when I had to deal with her. She would approve a certain transfusion and then battle with me about something else. I would say, “We just went through this last month!” And she would tell me it wasn’t her, that she’d never been there before. I finally realized I just needed to go ahead and do what was best for the animal and she was happy. I learned a lot from her. PGN: Another quote from one of your clients was, “I felt his love for animals as soon as he stepped out of his car.” Did that come from your parents? BB: No, no. They like pets, but can live without them. My love for them is intrinsic. Though nature shows were the way I connected with my dad, he wasn’t the best father — not at all — but every Saturday morning we would watch “Animal Planet” together. It wasn’t a profound connection but it was something we had. PGN: So, Halloween recently passed. Dressing up your pets — yay or nay? BB: I think it’s wonderful when people engage with their pets. Our animals love being part of the family so if you incorporate something that you’d do with your kids and the animal is into it, go for it. I think people don’t even realize how similar they are to us. PGN: An example? BB: At Lap of Love we see every day that pets grieve the loss of other pets. A lot of them don’t do it in the negative way that people do, they understand the circle of life. I always tell people, “Sad is not bad, sad is not hard, sad is just sad.” We’d do well to realize animals are very similar to us [… laughs] just better. PGN: It’s said that animals start to look like their owners … BB: That might be true, but I find more often that animals take on the personality of the owner, so if you have a nervous, neurotic person talking to you, their animal is going to be neurotic. Vets know this very well. I know when I have a client who is calm, I know they’re going to have a dog who is going to be chill. They adopt a lot of our emotions, so good people have good dogs and vice versa. PGN: Difficulties? BB: Any time you’re dealing with the public it’s difficult, but in our case it’s kind of like being a pediatrician because you basically have two patients — one can’t talk to you and the other can talk to you but really has no idea what’s really going on with the first one. It can lead to lots of difficulties. PGN: Your coming-out story? BB: Like a lot of people, when I was younger it was not appropriate to be gay, especially where I lived. Even in college I didn’t really address it, I just focused on school. I think a lot of LGBT people do well in careers because of that focus. It was hard to live thinking that your family and friends and community might reject you if they knew who you were. But in vet school I realized that I needed to have something else in my life and started dating online. That’s where I met my first boyfriend, Frank … I might start crying here. He was wonderful and will always be my love and best friend. He was out and proud and made me realize that we’re good people who deserve to be loved and deserve for people to know who we are. He taught me a lot. And got me a good therapist who helped me come out to everyone. PGN: Single now? BB: No, I have a partner, Gary, who is my heart and soul. School and animals were always my life — I’m the least worldly person in the world — but Gary brings happiness into my life and completes me. He’s everything I’m not: carefree and joyous. I couldn’t do what I do without him to come home to. PGN: [Points to a blue package.] And what’s this? BB: I wanted to share this with you. This is what we give to our clients. It’s information about us but it also contains worksheets that I think are important, like a quality-of-life chart. It’s so hard emotionally to decide when to euthanize, so this takes out the subjective part and helps you decide objectively. Your heart wants your dog or cat forever but the numbers chart on appetite, mobility, elimination, etc., helps you decide what’s best for your animal. We work very closely near end of life and people will call me sometimes twice a day to give me updates so I can really know where things stand. I also give them a notebook and pen to keep notes about their pet so when the time comes, I know we’re making the right decision. This is a cement paw print, but I have to take this one back because it’s from my cat, Laker 2, who recently passed. Laker 1 was a cat I got when I first became a vet who will always be my love. He’s one of the reasons I do what I do. Laker 2 was a feral cat but very sweet. He had feline AIDS and died shortly after I found him, but at least I know at the end he was cared for and happy. He had lox for his last meal. This is his commemoration. I always make a clay paw-print impression for every client that wants it. I also usually put a little fur clipping in a satin purse for them too; they might not even want it at first but I find people are grateful for it later. We like for them to have as much as they need. I also give them this bereavement book, which has some great ideas on how to honor their pet, especially for kids. Making a small pillow from your dog’s blanket or bandana, planting a tree, some really lovely ideas. It’s got poetry, information about cat and canine grief as well as a list of resources. We empower people to make the decisions they need to make in a dignified, loving and respectful manner. It’s amazing what it does. PGN: No wonder they call you an angel.
For more information on Lap of Love, visit www.lapoflove.com.
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