Spike vainshtein, rvt

Spike Vainshtein is a Registered Veterinary Technician with 18 years of experience in the veterinary medicine field.

Born in Lvov, Ukraine in 1973, Spike and family relocated to Rome, Italy in 1977 and eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1978.

Evidence of Spikes love and adoration for animals started very early in life and ultimately led her into the world of veterinary medicine in September 2000.

After 5 years in general practice, she transferred into a Specialty hospital where she spent 13 years immersed in a dynamic environment and actively worked until September 2018.

During that time, Spike was a Technical Surgery Supervisor working directly with multiple Board Certified Veterinary Surgeons and managing a team of anesthesia technicians. While working as a Surgery Tech Supervisor  transitioned into the Oncology department and worked with the head Oncologist for 9 years. She also was a founding member of a companion animal Bone Marrow Transplant team based out of West Los Angeles. Spikes experience also includes anesthesia, radiation oncology, internal medicine, MRI, CT, radiology and emergency medicine.

When not working in the Veterinary world, Spike is a multimedia artist, lighting designer/ fabricator and most importantly a geriatric chihuahua wrangler.

lana meier

Lana Meier was born in Palo Alto, California and moved to Los Angeles to attend Long Beach State University.

As a young child, her home was always filled with animals and she learned her compassion towards all animals from her parents. Her dad once brought home two baby ducks that he found walking down the street and that is where it began.

Lana has been involved in animal welfare for the past 20 years and works with several rescue organizations in Los Angeles. In 2014, Home Dog LA was created at the North Central Shelter as a non- profit shelter intervention program that helps keep pets with their owners. Lana serves as both the Secretary of the program as well as an Intervention Counselor.

Lana realized the need for Dogvocates through her own personal experiences with pets with cancer. She has had four dogs and one cat with varying types of cancer and found so many people reaching out to her for guidance.  She realized that once people heard the word “cancer” with their pet, they felt lost not knowing what to do and who to turn to. With so many options for treatment, she found that friends that came to her were often so confused as to what they should do.

Through her dog Callie’s battle with anal gland adenocarcinoma, she met Spike, who was Callie’s chemo technician. When Lana’s dog Lila was subsequently diagnosed with cancer at a very young age, they realized the need for an animal advocacy group to guide and educate pet parents as they navigate through a cancer diagnosis.