Pet Care Instructions for Your Partner: An Adelaide Parent’s Plan So the Animals Never End Up at a Shelter

You and your partner live in Adelaide with kids, a dog who only eats one specific brand, a cat on thyroid medication, and a guinea pig the youngest is convinced is hers. If one of you ends up in hospital — or worse — the other already knows the routine. But the vet’s after-hours number, the medication doses, the boarding kennel you trust, and the agreement with your sister that she’d take the dog if you both couldn’t? That lives in your head. The plan is to write it down once, give your partner clean access to it, and stop relying on memory in a crisis.

The problem

Pets are routinely surrendered to shelters after an owner’s death or hospitalisation, not because no one cared, but because no one had the information. The dog’s medication schedule, the cat’s vet, the bird’s dietary quirks, and — critically — who already agreed to take them on are usually undocumented. ASIC’s MoneySmart guidance on wills and estate planning notes that a will deals with assets and guardianship of children, but the daily logistics of pet care fall outside that document and are rarely captured anywhere your partner can find at 2am.

Your partner doesn’t need a legal instrument for the pets. They need a written, current care plan: which vet, which food, which medications and doses, which neighbour has a spare key for emergencies, and which family member has already said yes to taking the animals if neither of you can. Without that, even loving households default to the shelter because the alternative — guessing — feels worse.

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 as the recipient. The simplified version (built for individuals and families) records, per pet: name, species and breed, age, vet clinic and after-hours contact, current medications and doses, dietary requirements, the named intended carer if you and your partner are both unavailable, and that carer’s recorded consent. It also stores any pet trust or bequest arrangement you’ve made through your solicitor. The vault does NOT hold vet portal passwords or pet insurance login credentials — just the instructions and contacts.

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 reporting obligations — and it’s why it can be a simple subscription rather than a regulated product.

How it works

  1. You add each pet to your vault — name, vet clinic, medications, dietary needs, daily routine notes.
  2. You name an intended carer (a family member, friend, or your sister in the Adelaide Hills) and the vault records their consent before the module is considered complete.
  3. You name your partner as the recipient for the pets module. Instructions are typically reciprocal — each of you holds the other’s plan.
  4. If something happens, your partner is notified per your release rules and sees the pets module — vet number, medication doses, the named carer’s contact details — without having to dig through your phone or email.
  5. Your partner either continues care directly or hands the animals to the named carer, who has already agreed. The vault accelerates the handover; it doesn’t replace the conversations you’ve already had.

Why this matters in Adelaide

Adelaide households often have multi-pet setups — a dog plus a couple of cats, or chickens in the back garden alongside indoor pets — and the city’s vet ecosystem is concentrated in a handful of clinics that close at 7pm, with after-hours emergency care running out of a small number of providers in the suburbs. RSPCA South Australia and Animal Welfare League shelters take in surrendered animals every week from households where an owner died or was hospitalised and no plan existed. A two-page instruction set — vet, meds, food, named carer — is the difference between your partner handing the dog to your sister on day three, and a kid asking where the dog went on day ten.

Sources

Join the waitlist

Join the waitlist — first access when the Digital Legacy Vault opens for Adelaide parents

We’re opening waitlist access in tranches. Sign up to be notified when parents in Adelaide can register their first pets module. The Digital Legacy Vault holds instructions about what your animals need and who’s already agreed to take them on — not vet portal passwords, and not custody of the pets themselves.