Caring for your Pet in Canada

Maybe it's not the first thing you think about when you are making a Will, but if you love your pet you should make plans for them.

An obvious solution would be to ask your friends or relatives to take care of them. Yes you need to okay it with them first, and then let everyone who might be concerned know your plan. You can add a note to your Will, but of course your Will may not be read for many days after you pass away, so do not rely on that - your poor pet may have starved by then.

If you don't have a friend or relative who would be able to take in your beloved pet, then you have the option of looking to a professional organisation for help.

In Canada these organisations tend to be locally based.

Nova Scotia

In Nova Scotia, each municipality is different! If there is no one to immediately take the pets after their owner has passed away, it is most likely that municipal animal control would be called to remove the pets from the home. The pets would then be taken to the municipal pound or shelter to be adopted out. In some parts of the province, the municipal shelter is run by a branch of the Nova Scotia SPCA but in others it is run by the municipality itself.

Click here for more info'

British Columbia

The BCSPCA recommend that people bequeath their pets to a family member or a loved one that they can trust to care for the animals in the same loving way they would. Unfortunately, not everyone has that someone in their lives. For instances like these in BC, the BC SPCA offers a program called the Pet Survivor Care Program. Click here for more info'

Other Areas

We did contact organisations from all Canadian provinces. Not all of them bothered to reply.