There’s a great blog post at today’s New York Times blog, The New Old Age. The post is titled “The Pet Problem.”
Anne-Marie Schiro, 76, was determined that what had happened to a friend’s pets would not happen to hers.
Ms. Schiro’s friend, who died after a long illness, had made arrangements for a caregiver to take one of her cats. She assumed her son would take the other. But after her death, the caregiver backed out and the son decided that the additional cats — he already had two — were just too much. In the end, one cat was adopted into a new home, but the other was taken to a shelter.
“I’m going to make sure that something like that doesn’t happen,” Ms. Schiro said. “A lot of people will promise to take care of somebody’s animal, and then it comes down to it and they don’t want it or it’s too much trouble or it’s not well behaved or they find some excuse.”
Ms. Schiro’s solution? A document called a pet trust. Ms. Schiro lives in Manhattan with her 104-year-old mother, Anna Schiro, and three cats. The document specifies that if the cats — Lou Lou, Mimi and Johnny — outlive Ms. Schiro and her mother, they will be taken to a retirement community at the North Shore Animal League America, where they will live out their days, paid for by money set aside for them.
Read the entire story here:
http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/the-pet-problem/