Elderly Pets Homeless When Senior Goes Into Nursing Home

The photo of two boxers, huddled together on a bed, desperately trying to find comfort in one another, is heartbreaking in and of itself – knowing the reason that the senior dogs are at this animal control facility makes the situation all the more sad.

The dogs, Chilee and Molee, were surrendered to the Albuquerque, N.M., Animal Welfare Department facility by their elderly owner who was moving to a nursing home.

Undoubtedly, this was a devastating and difficult for the dogs’ guardian. Equally devastating is the sadness and confusion that these beautiful dogs are left with.

Chilee and Molee do not realize why they were left at an unfamiliar kennel – they have no idea if their person is coming back.

All these dogs have right now are each other.

Please take a moment to network Chilee and Molee’s information with the hope that it reaches a person who wants to adopt them, or a rescue agency who is able to take them in.

Source:
Elderly Guardian Goes to Nursing Home; Two Senior Dogs Go to Animal Control

The Forgotten Ones: Compassion for the Elderly

“Animals help patients keep their mind off their problems,” says Jean S. Uehl, the director of nurses. “The love the patients get from the animals is unconditional.” One particular stroke patient was withdrawn and rarely smiled, until she began to play with the resident cat. The patient and the cat became closely bonded to each other, and when the cat had kittens, “they became like the patient’s babies,” according to Uehl.

The kittens played and slept on a tray on the resident’s wheelchair and slept in a chair near her bed whenever they could. The kittens brought the resident out of her shell and she began to talk and smile. “The kittens in particular get all the residents’ attention,” says Uehl. “Everyone always wants to know where they’re at and what they’re doing.” When there are kittens in the building, a number of residents stay busy all day, following them, playing with them, and keeping an eye on them. ~ From HealthyPet.com

Consider taking your pet to visit residents at a nursing home or an elderly neighbor. They do NOT have to be registered therapy animals. Call your l ocal nursing homes and ask about their policies. Usually only updated shots are required for your pet. Don’t have a pet? Go hold a residents hand instead. ♥

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Facebook – The Forgotten Ones: Compassion for the Elderly

‘Fat Cats & Lucky Dogs’

For many people, their pets are members of the family that need to be taken care of if the pet owner dies before the pet. Fat Cats & Lucky Dogs explains how to include a pet in an estate plan.

Billionaire hotel operator Leona Helmsley famously left $12 million in trust for her dog when she died. While the average pet owner doesn’t have that much to leave, many do want to make sure their pets are provided for after they die. Written by two attorneys (one of whom is also a professor of law and a renowned expert on estate planning for pet owners), Fat Cats & Lucky Dogs details the various ways that pet owners can ensure their wishes regarding their pets are carried out.

The book explains that plans can range from informal, in which the pet owner asks a friend to care for the animal, to formal, in which a trust is formed to ensure the pet’s care. Some states allow pet owners to establish “pet trusts,” which are designed specifically for taking care of pets. The book also explains how to protect pets in a disaster or emergency, how to choose a caregiver, and how to determine the amount of money your pet will need, among other topics.

Fat Cats & Lucky Dogs has several appendices that are filled with useful resources for pet owners, including sample wording for wills and listings of after-death services and pet cemeteries. Peppered with facts about pets and funny quotes, Fat Cats & Lucky Dogs is a welcome publication for the nation’s pets and a good, information-packed read for their human companions.

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Elder Law Answers: Fat Cats & Lucky Dogs

The Forgotten Ones: Compassion for the Elderly

‎”Animals help patients keep their mind off their problems,” says Jean S. Uehl, the director of nurses. “The love the patients get from the animals is unconditional.”

One particular stroke patient was withdrawn and rarely smiled, until she began to play with the resident cat. The patient and the cat became closely bonded to each other, and when the cat had kittens, “they became like the patient’s babies,” according to Uehl. The kittens played and slept on a tray on the resident’s wheelchair and slept in a chair near her bed whenever they could. The kittens brought the resident out of her shell and she began to talk and smile.

“The kittens in particular get all the residents’ attention,” says Uehl. “Everyone always wants to know where they’re at and what they’re doing.” When there are kittens in the building, a number of residents stay busy all day, following them, playing with them, and keeping an eye on them. ~ From HealthyPet.com

Consider taking your pet to visit residents at a nursing home or an elderly neighbor. They do NOT have to be registered therapy animals. Call your local nursing homes and ask about their policies. Usually only updated shots are required for your pet.

Don’t have a pet? Go hold a residents hand instead. ♥

Source:
Facebook: The Forgotten Ones: Compassion for the Elderly

Providing for Your Pet’s Future Without You

Holland resident Frank Martin’s unexpected death on June 12 left his two Basset hounds, Harley, 4, and Davidson, 6, without a home or family.

Mr. Martin — like many pet owners — never made legal plans for his canine companions in the event of his death. These hounds appear to be lucky — the list of those offering to adopt them is long.

But had no one stepped forward, the outcome could have been bleaker — the dogs could have been split up or even faced death.

“That is why it is so important to make provisions in the will and that there is somebody who knows when you pass away that there are provisions,” executive director of Toledo Area Humane Society John Dinon said while explaining the possible consequences of failing to make post-death pet care plans.

In a document titled “Providing for Your Pet’s Future without You,” the Humane Society of the United States recommends that pet owners delegate temporary care-giving responsibility to friends or relatives in the event of an emergency, in addition to making permanent care plans in a legal document.

Full Article and Source:
Owners Urged to Make Provisions for Pet in Will

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Providing for Your Pets Future Without You

>Trouble’s Death Kept Quiet

>There’s pampered, and there’s pampered, and then there was $12 million Trouble pampered.

It’s been kept mum, and no one knows why for sure. Maybe it’s because the family didn’t want to bring it up, or have to deal with the inevitable gossip buzz it would surely create, or maybe it’s because certain disinhertited family members with a distaste for Trouble didn’t want to face old wounds again.

Probably because it just plain wasn’t worth the Trouble.

Whatever the reason(s), A Helmsley family heiress passed away at the ripe old age of 12 way back in December, and the world only learned of it this month. That’s right- 12. But that’s around 84 in dog years, if one can really consider Trouble Helmsley a ‘mere dog.’

Obviously, billionaire real estate tycoon Leona Helmsley and Trouble her super-pampered Maltese didn’t think so. When Leona Helmsley passed away in 2008, she left a hefty sum inheritance of $12 million to ensure a comfortable life for her pet.

Full Article and Source:
Trouble – the $12 Million Dog Death Kept Secret

>Estate Dispute

>A terminally ill woman who set up a $1 million trust fund to care for her cats and dogs when she was gone was “unduly influenced” by a lawyer who made his girlfriend the largest beneficiary of her estate, according to a ruling in Athens-Clarke Probate Court that rejected the contested will.

Now the strange case has been appealed to Elbert County Superior Court, where a jury eventually could hear the facts about a woman who left most of her estate to provide for the care of her pets.

Probate Judge Susan P. Tate in March overturned the will of 53-year-old Kay Elaine Johnston, who died of lung cancer in December 2007. Tate ruled that Elberton attorney Robert Johnson used the power of suggestion on the sick woman to unduly influence the will.

Johnston’s cousin, Carol Phillips, asked the court to throw out the will, which left a $1 million trust fund to provide for the animals along with a home and seven acres of land to the lawyer’s girlfriend, Kyria Wilhite. She was to be paid $50,000 a year plus additional fees for taking care of the 50 cats and six dogs that were alive at the time of Johnson’s death, according to Tate’s ruling.

“It was devastating – shocking – I can’t say it any other way,” Phillips said about reading the will for the first time. “I couldn’t understand that (Robert Johnson) would have done anything like this. He was at her funeral, and I thought he was such a kind and loving man.”

According to Tate’s ruling, Johnson billed the deceased woman’s estate for every visit made to her home, even charging to attend her funeral.

“If she said, ‘I want a gallon of milk,’ he’d go to the grocery store and charge his lawyer fee to get it, plus the milk. Everything he did, he charged for,” Phillips said.

Full Article and Source:
New Turn in Dispute of Estate

>Pet Provisions

>Valerie Howell volunteers at the Miami-Dade County animal shelter, so she knows exactly that happens when people die without having provided for their pets.

“Maybe a relative doesn’t know what to do with them, so they end up there and may be euthanized,” said Howell, a Coral Gables physical therapist. “Or, they end up at a no-kill shelter and spend years living in a cage.”

To guarantee that no such fate befalls the felines in her life when the end comes, Howell, 56, is including a pet trust in her estate plan.

“Almost everybody I know knows I love animals, and are not surprised,” she said.

Pet trusts aren’t just for quirky millionaires anymore, like real-estate mogul Leona Helmsley, who left $12 million to her Malti-poo in 2007 — which a judge later reduced to $2 million — or Miami Beach heiress Gail Posner, who bequeathed her $8.3 million mansion and $3 million to her Chihuahua and two other dogs last summer.

The key provisions of Florida Statute 736.0408 are:

(1) A trust may be created to provide for the care of an animal alive during the settlor’s lifetime. The trust terminates on the death of the animal or, if the trust was created to provide for the care of more than one animal alive during the settlor’s lifetime, on the death of the last surviving animal.

(2) A trust authorized by this section may be enforced by a person appointed in the terms of the trust or, if no person is appointed, by a person appointed by the court. A person having an interest in the welfare of the animal may request the court to appoint a person to enforce the trust or to remove a person appointed.”

Full Article and Source:
Pet Provisions

Insightful and Comforting Cat

A cat with an uncanny ability to detect when nursing home patients are about to die has proven itself in around 50 cases by curling up with them in their final hours, according to a new book.

Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, said that five years of records showed Oscar rarely erring, sometimes proving medical staff at the New England nursing home wrong in their predictions over which patients were close to death.

The cat, now five and generally unsociable, was adopted as a kitten at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, Rhode Island, which specialises in caring for people with severe dementia.

The tortoiseshell and white cat spends its days pacing from room to room, rarely spending any time with patients except those with just hours to live.

If kept outside the room of a dying patient, Oscar will scratch on the door trying to get in.

When nurses once placed the cat on the bed of a patient they thought close to death, Oscar “charged out” and went to sit beside someone in another room. The cat’s judgement was better than that of the nurses: the second patient died that evening, while the first lived for two more days.

Dr Dosa and other staff are so confident in Oscar’s accuracy that they will alert family members when the cat jumps on to a bed and stretches out beside its occupant.

Full Article and Source:
Cat Predicts 50 Deaths in RI Nursing Home

Pet Trusts Revealed

Eminent legal scholars such as Harvard Law School professors Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe and others support animal rights. Activist groups have evolved from loose organizations of like-minded advocates to national and international associations with considerable clout. This concept is gaining acceptance in this country and throughout the world. In fact, in 2008, Spain granted legal rights to great apes.

Whatever we feel about the work of animal activists, it can’t be denied that we care about animals. Approximately 65 million households in the United States include cats and dogs. An additional 11 to 12 million households include small pets like ferrets, rabbits, fish, hamsters and snakes. And, significantly, most pet owners consider their pets to be members of the family.

So it’s not surprising that in April of 2000, Michigan enacted a new probate code, the Estates and Protected Individuals Code (EPIC), which makes Michigan one of 40 states that has some sort of statutory provisions for “pet trusts” for domestic or pet animals.

Nancy Little, an attorney with Foster Zack Little Pasteur & Manning, PC, says, “My area of practice focuses on trusts and estates which would include estate planning and administering trusts and probate estates after a person has died.

“The EPIC legislation permits an individual to leave a trust for a domestic animal. Prior to that, pet animals were considered property, and an individual couldn’t leave a gift to property. But since this legislation, a person can establish a trust to provide for the care of an animal.”

Full Article and Source:
Pet Trusts Revealed