Pet Care Instructions for Your Partner: A Perth Parent’s Plan for the Dog, the Cat, and the Kids

You live in Perth with your partner and at least one child. There’s also a dog who only eats the specific kibble from the vet, a cat on thyroid medication, and a rabbit the kids would be devastated to lose. If you ended up in Fiona Stanley overnight, your partner could probably manage. If something worse happened, and your partner was also out of action, the plan falls apart fast — because the care instructions live in your head, and the back-up carer you assumed would step in has never actually been asked.

The problem

Pets are routinely surrendered to shelters after an owner’s death or hospitalisation, not because no one cared, but because no one knew the daily routine, the vet, the medication doses, or who had agreed in advance to take the animal. ASIC’s MoneySmart estate planning guidance is clear that a will deals with property at death — but pets are legally property, and a will is read weeks after the funeral. That’s far too slow for an animal that needs feeding tonight and insulin tomorrow morning.

Your partner is the obvious first port of call. But “the partner knows” isn’t a plan when both parents are travelling, both are in the same car, or both are caring for a sick child and can’t get to the pets at home in Como or Scarborough. What’s needed is a written, releasable instruction set: who the carer is, who the vet is, what the animal eats and takes, and who has already said yes.

What the Digital Legacy Vault does

The Digital Legacy Vault is an asset-instruction register. The simplified version (built for individuals and families) records, per animal: species and name, daily feeding and exercise routine, medication name and dose, vet clinic name and phone number, microchip number, the intended back-up carer’s name and contact, and the date that carer recorded their consent. It also stores notes on any pet trust or bequest you’ve arranged through a solicitor — Digital Legacy Vault does not create the trust, it just records that it exists and where the document is filed.

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 and outside AUSTRAC reporting — and it’s why it can be a simple subscription rather than a regulated product. The vault records personal information about you, your partner, your back-up carer, and your vet, and is handled under the Australian Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act 1988.

How it works

  1. You add each pet to your vault — name, species, vet, medication, daily routine, microchip number.
  2. You name a back-up carer (often a sibling, a close friend, or a parent in Joondalup or Fremantle) and the vault records their consent so they aren’t surprised on the worst day.
  3. You name your partner as the recipient for the pets module. They accept, and the vault records that consent.
  4. If something happens to you, your partner is notified per your release rules and sees only the pets instructions module — not your other modules unless you’ve released them too.
  5. If something happens to both of you, your release rules can escalate the pets module to the named back-up carer, who already knows the dog’s kibble and the cat’s vet.

Why this matters in Perth

Perth households often rely on a back-up carer who lives interstate — a parent in Adelaide, a sibling in Melbourne — because extended family is rarely around the corner. That makes the “who agreed to take the animals” question harder, not easier: the carer needs warning, flights, and a clear handover document. RSPCA WA and local council pounds in Perth handle owner-surrender intakes every week, and a meaningful share of those animals arrive because the household plan didn’t survive a hospitalisation. A two-page instruction module — carer named and consenting, vet listed, medications written down — is usually the difference between a pet going home with family and a pet going to a shelter.

Sources

Join the waitlist

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

We’re opening waitlist access in tranches. Sign up to be notified when parents in Perth can register their first pets module. The Digital Legacy Vault holds instructions about what exists and how your partner can find it — the vet, the medication, the back-up carer who already said yes — not your passwords, and not the animals themselves.