I had the flu in February. Big time. Haven’t been that sick in years. Bad cough. High fever. So sick I needed help.
I’m the only human in my multi-species family, so getting help was hard. Yes, I have friends to call, and no, I didn’t want to. The ‘flu’ (an epidemiologist told me they couldn’t identify this ‘flu,’ but I’m sure it was as close to a plague as we could ever fear to see). So many people were so sick with it that I worried about accidentally contaminating them by even having them deliver groceries or walk the dogs.
Taking care of myself was hard. Stunning, blinding, debilitating hard. I needed help. So did my animal family.
It’s taken me all year to get well. Two months to recover from the flu, four to recover from the side effects, still counting on rebuilding my energy.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about what would have happened to my animal family if I’d died.
That’s when I realized that I hadn’t updated my will in 9 years. My two dogs, Murphy and Alki, were provided for, but Grace the Cat would, technically, end up homeless. Although I’d had the guardianship conversation recently with any number of people, I hadn’t followed up for my own kids. I’d essentially ignored an essential element of the human-animal bond: I hadn’t made sure they would always be cared for.
So here’s what you do for your animal family: before you die.
Financial and Legal Provisions
- Estimate your animal’s longevity.
- Estimate your animal’s basic care costs: food, shelter, medical care, entertainment (yep, you’ll be dead, but they’ll still need to play).
- Estimate your animal’s special care costs: food, medical care, emergency care, supportive care (palliative, mobility aids, etc.).
- Update your will.
- Prepare legal documents: have your attorney draw up legal documents providing for transfer of ownership (animals are our families, but legally they are property), care directions, and financial support.
- Consider appointing multiple guardians:
- a legal guardian to oversee legal issues
- a welfare guardian to oversee the estate monies and monitor the animal’s welfare in a new home (financial and physical/emotional care)
- a physical guardian to adopt your animals
Physical Provisions
- Find a physical guardian. Someone needs to adopt your animals. It’s better to have someone in mind (and willing) than for your animal family to end up in a shelter—or on the street.
- Consider each animal’s physical needs: does your cat need a warm bed at night, do the dogs sleep in bed with you or in the hall to keep cool, what do they like to eat, what are their favorite toys? What kind of family would suit them: a single person, an elderly couple, a rabble-rousing kid-filled family? Must multiple animals be rehomed together? Is your animal handicapped? I adore my handicapped dog, but some people may not be able to physically or emotionally care for an animal with special needs.
- Keep records: write everything up, including medical records. Keep it updated and share it with friends: everything you know about your animal should be right there. Make sure to discuss all of it with your potential guardians.
- Find a welfare guardian to oversee your animal’s life in a new home. Appoint someone you know and trust who has common sense, a practical mind, compassion, and shares your mindset. That person will have tough choices. Make sure those choices are as close to your own as you would make. Your animals deserve it.
- Consider separating guardianships. One person could supervise ownership transfer, ongoing physical and emotional welfare, and financial care for the animal’s life; another person becomes the caretaker (new owner). Seriously. Consider separating the money from the physical guardian. Welfare guardians can be objective and ensure that the monies are only going for your animal’s care. Yes, there’s the consideration that your animals are only being adopted for their estate, but there’s also the emotional burden physical guardians must deal with if a catastrophic medical issue arises. If you’ve planned properly, this guardian will fall in love with your family: lessen the burden by leaving the financial decisions to someone else.
- Regularly update your legal documents to reflect the animal’s physical and emotional condition.
- Regularly check in with your appointed guardians. We usually don’t plan to die, but we will, anyway. Say every year at tax time you also check in with prospective guardians, to make sure nothing has changed for them and they will still be available to serve their role.
Emotional Provisions
- Define your animal’s basic emotional needs. Assess each animal’s personality, and verify that with friends who know them: our devotion to our animals can blind us to their faults, so make sure you outline what someone would like, and dislike, about each one. You’ll have a better chance of finding your animals a good home.
- Physical needs help define emotional ones, but they really are separate issues. What do your animals need to be happy? Yes, they will miss you. Make sure their legal guardian knows what they need to feel safe, happy, comforted—and loved.
- Find a good animal communicator. Yes, I talk with animals, but I also have trusted communicators talk with mine. Find someone who can help you talk with your animal companions about their concerns in this process and what they would like. They have rights, too. And opinions and feelings. Honor them.
So, have I updated care instructions for my kids? Um, well. Yes, guardians are notified, monies are set aside, preferences and needs are identified.
Here’s what I learned this year.
Being sick reminds us that we’re mortal, which reminds us that things end. I want to make sure that if I can’t be there, someone else will be: someone who will try, as hard as I do, to create a healthy happy multi-species family.
In the meantime, I’m going to remind myself every day that I’m alive, my kids are alive, and we have the world’s best family. I make sure to tell them that every day.
My kids know it, and believe it.
How about yours? Tell them you love them, every day. Before it’s too late. Enjoy your animal family. And don’t forget: if you’re not there, someone almost as good as you should be. Make sure of it.
© 2011 Robyn M Fritz
I ‘enjoyed’ your blog on your animals. For the last two decades of her life my wife had to use a wheelchair (ms. variant) and she was at home with the dogs all day – mainly because she was typing my mss but anyway she loved doing what gardening she could. And many were the laughs and tears for her over punctures – 43 in one tyre alone! But when she died the dogs – Bedlington Terriers – suffered a terrible loss as they hadn’t known a life without my wife and her wheelchair or scooter. I had to continue working, and had to leave them with a friend. You can guess the rest as all three of us lost her. Perhaps we should draw an age line (they were 14) at which perhaps it is better to do the kind thing than to leave them with a happening we cannot explain to them.
I have enjoyed your notes on book production, it is easy to choose the poorer path than the right.
David, thank you for sharing your story about your wife and your Belingtons. My condolences to you. I do know our animal families understand things very well. I also know that we all, humans and animals, have trouble accepting sadness and endings. Grieving and growing are part of life, aren’t they? But not the easy parts. It’s tough making choices for our animals, and even when we can talk with them as I and other people do, it doesn’t mean that they understand and accept any better than we do, because loving someone and losing them isn’t a process we can intellectualize, is it? All we can do is the best we can, at that time. I’m sure you did that. I don’t know about age lines. I’ve seen remarkable things in my animal family, and I treasure the process of aging with them, but it’s not easy. I’m glad you had these wonderful relationships, and hope that your loving heart finds ease.