Pet Care Instructions for Your Sibling: A Perth Carer’s Plan for Your Parent’s Dog, Cat, or Companion Animal

Your mum lives in her own place in Perth, she’s in her late seventies, and the kelpie cross is the reason she still gets out the front door each morning. You’re the one who drives her to the vet in Bentley and refills the arthritis medication. If she goes into hospital next week — or doesn’t come home from it — your sister in Fremantle has already said she’ll take the dog. None of that is written down anywhere a paramedic, a neighbour, or your sister could find at 2am.

The problem

When an older person is suddenly hospitalised or dies, the pet is almost always the loose thread. ASIC’s MoneySmart estate planning guidance covers wills and powers of attorney for finances and health — but pets sit awkwardly in the middle: they’re legally property, but they need feeding tonight, not after probate. The result is predictable. Pets get surrendered to shelters across Perth every week because no one knew the dog’s medication schedule, no one had the vet’s number, and the family member who’d verbally agreed to take them couldn’t be reached or had changed their mind.

Your sister doesn’t need access to your mum’s bank account or her MyGov. She needs to know: the dog’s name and age, what he eats and when, which vet clinic holds his records, what the arthritis medication is and where the script lives, and that she has — on the record — agreed to take him. She also needs that information to arrive in her hands within hours of something going wrong, not weeks.

What the Digital Legacy Vault does

The Digital Legacy Vault is an asset-instruction register: you record what exists, where to find it, and who you’ve nominated to receive the instructions. The simplified version (built for individuals and families) records, per animal in your parent’s household: the pet’s name, species, age, dietary needs, medication and dose schedule, the vet clinic name and phone number, behavioural notes, and the named intended carer with their recorded consent. It does NOT hold your mum’s house keys, her MyGov password, or any credential. Your sister sees the inventory you’ve prepared for her, only when you’ve released it.

The boundary matters: the Digital Legacy Vault is not a financial product, not a custody service, and not an advice service. It’s an instructions register. That’s what keeps it outside the AFSL regime under Corporations Act Part 7.6, and outside AUSTRAC’s reporting obligations. The vault also handles your sister’s details as personal information under the Australian Privacy Principles — she has to accept the nomination and consent to her contact details being held.

How it works

  1. You add each animal to your mum’s vault — name, vet clinic, daily routine, medication, any behavioural notes a new carer would need on day one.
  2. You name your sister as the recipient for the pets module. She receives a request, reviews what she’s agreeing to take on, and accepts. The vault records her consent.
  3. You record the vet clinic’s contact number and a note about where the physical medication and any pet insurance paperwork live in the house.
  4. If your mum is hospitalised or dies, you (or a co-trigger you’ve named) release the pets module. Your sister is notified immediately and sees only the pets instructions — not the superannuation module, not the will location, not anything else unless you’ve released those too.
  5. Your sister collects the dog with a sheet of paper that tells her what he eats, when his next dose is due, and who to call. The shelter never enters the picture.

Why this matters in Perth

Perth’s geography makes this worse than people expect. Adult children of ageing parents are often scattered — one in Joondalup, one in Mandurah, one interstate — and the parent’s GP, vet, and pharmacy are usually clustered around their suburb, not around the family. When something happens at Royal Perth or Fiona Stanley, the sibling who’s named to take the animal may be ninety minutes away and has never met the vet. A clear instruction module — carer named and consented, vet phone number, medication schedule — turns a panicked weekend of phone calls into a single drive and a single handover. It’s also the difference between a Perth shelter taking in another senior’s pet and that pet sleeping in your sister’s spare room on Saturday night.

Sources

Join the waitlist

Join the waitlist — first access when the Digital Legacy Vault opens for Perth carers

We’re opening waitlist access in tranches. Sign up to be notified when carers of ageing parents in Perth can register their first pets module. The Digital Legacy Vault holds instructions about what your parent’s animals need and who has agreed to take them — not house keys, not passwords, and not the animals themselves.