Providing for your pets in your will

Canadian law is unsentimental about this: your dog is property, like your car. She cannot inherit, cannot be a beneficiary, and if your will says nothing, she passes with the residue of your estate to whoever inherits that — who may be allergic, abroad, or simply not a dog person. Shelters see the result weekly.

The plan is two lines long.

1. Name a pet guardian

A gift of the animal to a named person: “I give my dog Maple to my sister Priya.” Name a backup too — wills outlive circumstances, and the friend with the big yard may be in a condo by then.

Ask first, the same as a child’s guardian. The honest questions: do they actually like your animal, does their housing allow it, do their own pets tolerate it, and are they at a life stage where a fifteen-year commitment is plausible?

2. Leave care money — to the person, not the pet

A cash gift to the guardian, expressed as being toward the animal’s care: “…together with $5,000 toward her care.” Food, vet bills and insurance for a healthy dog run a few thousand dollars a year; senior animals more. The number is yours; the mechanism matters:

The details worth adding

• A fallback organisation. If no named guardian can take the animal, direct your executor to place it through a named rescue — some shelters run legacy-placement programmes for exactly this.
• Interim care. Your executor controls your property from death, including the animal; the estate can pay for boarding until the guardian collects her. Make sure whoever has your keys knows there is an animal in the house — that is a today problem, not a will problem. Your estate record is a good place to note it.
• Livestock and horses are a different scale of property with real costs; that is a conversation with a lawyer and your farm insurer, not a paragraph.

In the questionnaire

EstateCanvas asks whether you have pets, who the guardian and backup are, and whether to attach a care gift — the whole plan above, in about ninety seconds.