This is information, not legal advice. Petipedia is not a law firm and cannot tell you what to do about your own situation. Everything below names the body that published it so you can read the original. Where something depends on which state you are in, it says so, and you will need to check your own state or talk to a lawyer there.
Sources read on 16 September 2026. Custody statutes are being added, so check whether your state has passed one since.
In most of the country a pet is divided like a sofa, because that is what the law says it is. Eight jurisdictions have changed that and require the court to consider the animal’s own care and wellbeing rather than just who paid for it.
Alaska was first, in January 2017. Then Illinois in 2018, California in 2019, New Hampshire in 2019, New York in 2021, Maine in 2021, Washington DC in 2023 and Rhode Island in 2024.
Maine’s is the most detailed, listing what the court weighs: who meets the animal’s daily needs, who has been doing the caring, who can carry on doing it, how attached the parties and any children are, and any history of domestic violence or animal abuse.
Bills are pending in several other states. Pending is not law, and a bill that has been introduced three years running is still not law.
You cannot leave money to an animal, because an animal cannot own anything or go to court. What you can do everywhere in the US is set up a pet trust: money held by a trustee, a named carer who looks after the animal, and a named enforcer who can take the trustee to court if the money is not being spent on the animal. Minnesota was the last state to allow this, in 2016.
Courts do not automatically cut these down to a sum they consider sensible. In a New York case in 2014 an executor asked to reduce a trust of more than four and a half million dollars left for two cats. The court refused, because the owner had left specific instructions about their care and the money was tied to them.
A line in a will saying who should have the dog is not the same thing and is much weaker. It gives the animal away without giving anyone the money to keep it, or any way to check that it happened.
Find out whether your state is one of the eight, because it changes what a court is even allowed to consider.
If you want a pet trust, it is a document a lawyer drafts. The point of it is the enforcer, and getting that part wrong makes the rest decorative.
Whoever you are naming as the carer should be asked first. A surprising number of these arrangements fail at exactly that step.