Originally published August 2024. Updated August 2026.
August is National Make-A-Will Month, making it the perfect time to think about your legacy and ensure your loved ones are cared for after you’re gone. We recently completed our own estate planning, and with five dogs and two horses depending on us, one of the most important questions wasn’t just what happens to our property if something happens to us, it was what happens to them? Who would take care of each animal? Would that person want and be able to take on the responsibility? How would their veterinary care, food, and other expenses be paid? What about our horses, who come with very different financial and logistical needs than the dogs?
They aren’t fun questions to answer, but once we worked through them, I realized how much peace of mind came from knowing there was actually a plan. For pet parents in Texas, simply assuming a family member will take your animals isn’t much of a plan. Your estate planning can address who cares for your pets, how their care is funded, and what should happen if your first choice can’t fulfill your request. Here’s what we learned and what every Texas pet owner should know about including dogs, cats, horses, and other companion animals in an estate plan.
This article is intended for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. Estate-planning laws and individual circumstances vary. Consult a licensed Texas estate-planning attorney regarding your specific situation.
Can You Include a Pet in Your Will in Texas?
Yes, but not in quite the same way you would leave money or property to a person. Under Texas law, pets are considered property rather than legal beneficiaries. That means you can’t simply leave your dog $50,000 and expect him to start paying his own Chewy bills. You can, however, use your estate plan to determine who receives and cares for your pets and provide money for their care. Texas law also allows pet trusts specifically designed to provide for animals. This is the route we took.
A pet trust may be created during your lifetime or through provisions that take effect after your death. Because the right structure depends on your individual estate and circumstances, talk with a Texas estate-planning attorney about the best way to accomplish your wishes.
Why Include Your Pets in Your Estate Planning?
While we might not want to think about it, life is unpredictable. Most of us have probably had the casual conversation, “if anything happens to me, you’ll take the dogs, right?” And while that’s better than nothing, there is a big difference between a conversation and a plan. Life changes, people move, they have children, they acquire pets of their own, their financial circumstances change. The person who happily agrees to take your dog today may not be in a position to take three dogs and a guinea pig ten years from now. Some animals aren’t easily rehomed. Senior pets, dogs with medical conditions, reactive dogs, bonded animals, and horses can require very specific caregivers. Planning ahead lets you consider those needs while you still have the ability to make the decisions yourself.
What Should You Include in Your Pet’s Estate Plan?
Every family’s plan will look different, but our own experience made us realize just how many decisions go beyond simply choosing who gets the dogs.
Choose a Primary Caregiver
Think carefully about the person you would trust to take your pets. Do they know your animal? Does their lifestyle realistically allow for another pet? Do they have other animals that would be compatible? Are they physically capable of caring for your pet?
Most importantly, have you actually asked them? Our pack has a lot of “aunts,” but that does not automatically mean they are volunteering to inherit two Saint Bernards, two Great Danes, an Irish Wolfhound, and two horses!
Choose a Backup Caregiver
Your first choice may be perfect today and unable to take your animals when the time comes. Identify at least one backup and have the same conversation with them. For families with multiple pets or large packs like ours, also consider whether all of the animals should remain together or whether different caregivers would be a better fit.
Plan for the Cost of Their Care
Think realistically about what your animals cost over the course of a year, including:
- Food and treats
- Routine veterinary care
- Emergency veterinary expenses
- Medications
- Grooming
- Boarding or pet sitting
- Training
- Insurance
- Mobility or accessibility needs as they age
- Other ongoing expenses specific to your animals
Then consider their ages and potential lifespans. A healthy three-year-old dog may need another decade or more of care. A horse may require years of feed, farrier visits, veterinary care, and boarding. Our pack’s heartworm prevention alone costs $2500 a year…yikes. We determined these costs with our veterinarian, estate-planning attorney, and financial advisor to find the best way to cover them.
What is a Pet Trust in Texas?
Texas law allows a trust to be created specifically for the care of an animal. Our pet trust provides money for our animals’ care and establishes instructions for how those resources should be used. This can be particularly useful when an animal has significant ongoing expenses, such as our horses’ board, or when you want more structure than simply leaving your pet and money to a caregiver.
Under Texas Property Code §112.037, a trust may provide for an animal that is alive during your lifetime. Since our trust covers multiple animals, it continues until the death of our last surviving pet. Any funds remaining in the trust after the pet’s death can be distributed according to your wishes, such as to a charity or a beneficiary. A person can also be designated to enforce the trust. If one isn’t designated, a court may appoint someone to do so. In our case, we have a separate executor to ensure someone has oversight of all of the funds, resources, and needs.
Your attorney can help determine whether a pet trust makes sense for your family and how it should fit into the rest of your estate plan. There are several Dallas-based attorneys specializing in wills and pet trusts. The Texas State Bar offers a directory to help you find the right legal support, or we are happy to recommend ours if you’d like to contact us privately.
Document How You Actually Care for Your Pets
This was one of the areas that made me realize estate planning isn’t just about legal documents. Although we are fortunate that our designated caregivers are closley familiar with our pets’ needs, no one knows your animals exactly the way you do.
Write down the information someone would need to maintain their normal life:
- Veterinarian and emergency veterinarian
- Medications and dosages
- Food and feeding schedule
- Allergies
- Medical history
- Behavioral considerations
- Exercise routine
- Groomer
- Trainer
- Boarding or pet-sitting preferences
- Microchip information
- Insurance information
- Favorite activities
- Comfort items
- People and animals they’re bonded to
For dogs with behavioral needs, be particularly specific. If your dog is reactive, fearful, an escape artist, or shouldn’t live with cats, that’s not a minor personality footnote. It’s information their future caregiver needs to know.
Don’t Forget the Immediate Emergency Plan
A will or trust addresses the bigger picture, but there’s another question worth asking: What happens to your animals tonight if you can’t get home? If you’re unexpectedly hospitalized or both members of a household are involved in an accident, someone needs immediate access to your animals. Consider keeping easily accessible emergency information that identifies:
- Who should be contacted
- Who has permission and access to retrieve your animals
- Where food and medications are located
- Your veterinarian’s information
- Basic care instructions
- Where your formal estate-planning documents can be found
The legal plan matters, but so does making sure someone can feed the dogs tomorrow morning.
Estate Planning for Horses and Other Large Animals
Our horses required an entirely different conversation from our dogs. Finding someone who loves your horse isn’t enough. They also need the experience, facilities, and financial ability to care for a thousand-pound animal. If you own horses or other large animals, your planning may need to consider:
- Where the animal will live
- Whether the caregiver has appropriate facilities
- Boarding costs
- Feed and supplements
- Farrier care
- Routine and emergency veterinary care
- Transportation
- Tack and equipment
- Training or exercise requirements
- Whether bonded animals should remain together
- What should happen if the designated caregiver can’t keep them
Horses can also live for decades. A young horse may potentially outlive several major changes in your own life and the lives of the people you’ve designated to care for them. That makes a backup plan especially important.
How Much Money Should You Leave for Your Pet?
There isn’t one number that’s right for every pet. Start by estimating what you currently spend on your animal each year. Then consider age, expected lifespan, breed, health, insurance, and the possibility that medical costs may increase substantially later in life. A young, healthy dog and a senior dog requiring several medications obviously present different financial pictures. Horses add another level of expense entirely. The goal isn’t necessarily to predict every dollar your animal will ever need. It’s to give your attorney and financial advisor enough realistic information to help you build an appropriate plan.
What Happens If You Have Multiple Pets?
This was especially relevant for us. Don’t automatically assume that “the dogs” need to be treated as one unit. Think about each animal individually. Which ones are truly bonded? Which could happily live separately? Would one caregiver realistically be able to take all of them? Would another home actually be better suited to a particular animal?
Your plan should reflect the relationships and needs of the animals themselves, not just what’s easiest to write on paper. If keeping certain animals together is particularly important to you, discuss that with your designated caregiver(s) and estate-planning attorney so your wishes can be documented appropriately.
Pet Estate Planning Checklist
If you’re starting this process, these are some of the things to consider:
- Primary caregiver selected
- Backup caregiver selected
- Both caregivers have agreed
- Veterinary information documented
- Medications and medical needs documented
- Feeding instructions recorded
- Behavioral considerations recorded
- Microchip and identification information accessible
- Boarding or pet-sitting information available
- Financial needs estimated
- Emergency caregiver identified
- Someone has immediate access to the animals
- Plans made for horses or large animals
- Wishes for multiple or bonded pets considered
- End-of-life preferences discussed
- Location of estate documents known
- Plan reviewed with a Texas estate-planning attorney
- Plan reviewed periodically as animals and circumstances change
You don’t need to figure out every legal detail before meeting with an attorney. But walking in with answers to these questions can make that conversation much more productive.
Going through our own estate planning made me think about legacy differently. We were making plans for who would care for our dogs and horses someday. But we were also confronting something every pet parent knows and generally tries not to think about too hard. None of our time together is guaranteed.
Planning for your pets isn’t morbid. It’s an acknowledgment of just how much they matter. Estate planning helps make sure they’re cared for if you aren’t here to do it yourself.
This August, take the time to ensure that every member of your family, including the furry ones, is cared for in your will. Planning ahead with love and thoughtfulness will provide you and your loved ones peace of mind, knowing that your pets will continue to receive the care they deserve.
At Haute Dog Pet Photography, we specialize in making pets live forever through personality-packed portraits in Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond—because the love we have for our pets deserves to be cherished for generations to come.
