Planning Your Estate to Include a Plan For Your Pet

Pets are becoming apart of our families. As a result, many pet owners are beginning to make arrangements of who will care for their pet if they pass away. Fortunately, many states have pet trust laws that allow some predictability for your pet. Below are some tips from All Animals Magazine that may help pet owners plan more adequately for pet care post-mortem. 

1. Identify a caregiver
2. Appoint an alternate 
3. Give a detailed information about your pets medical history and needs
4. Set aside money for your pets expenses when you pass away 
5. Write your expectations out in a will or trust
6. Be sure to make it clear that the money left to the pet caregiver is specifically for your pet’s care 
7. Trusts may be pricey, but they add a check to ensure that the funds set aside for pet care are being used for your pet
8. Talk to a lawyer after coming up with aa game plan of what you would like to happen.

For more information on how to set up pet care after death check out Fat Cats & Lucky Dogs a book I co- authored that details a range of options to provide for our pets’ future under such circumstances when we are no longer mentally or physically able to take care of them.

See James Hettinger, Backup Plan -Estate Planning Experts Urge Pet Owners To Prepare for the Possibility that their Animal Companions May Outlive Them, Humane Society, June 20, 2013.