“I am 78 years old and came to Australia from Germany in 1969. Sadly, I lost my wife to Alzheimer’s a few years ago. I now live alone with my four cats, Layla, Ruby, Sofia and Anita. They are my family and I would rather die than part with them…”

-- Rolfe, Tasmania

“I owe my life to Frankie, my Delta Therapy Dog, for detecting my stage 4 melanoma and alerting the neighbours when I fell twice and needed an ambulance. Us old folks who live alone and are not as well as we should be physically and mentally, we must have a companion animal...”

-- Joanne, NSW

Too many older Australians are being forced to separate from the furry companions because of lack of support services for them to keep their pets. In fact, pets are being surrendered to shelters or even being euthanised instead. 

We, the Companion Animal Network Australia, are a charity campaigning for pet-friendly aged care support services to want to increase the number of pet-friendly aged care support services to maximise the physical and emotional health of animal loving older people.

We are calling on Mark Butler MP Minister for Health and Aged Care and Hon Anika Wells MP Minister for Aged Care to help our ageing population maintain a high quality of life and that includes finding ways to help older adults retain their pets. 

A host of studies demonstrate the myriad of physical and mental health benefits there are of pet companionship, especially for older adults who often face loneliness and isolation and rely on their companion animals to thrive.

The Government says it is working on keeping older people in their homes. Why aren't they prepared to make minor changes that would benefit the people, pets, home care support agencies/businesses?

In our surveys, people are telling us that pets ease the transition into aged care for most and they help improve health outcomes too. Whilst 40% of older adults who receive a Home Care Package (HCP) have pets, only 9% of these pet owners receive pet care support, such as walking their dog and taking their pet to the vet.

Increasing pet-friendly aged care support will not cost the government much - the financial implementation of adding these resources to the packages is minor and would be in many cases, mean simply changing the wording of the delivery of existing items.

We want to make sure the care older people receive at home contributes to their quality of life and supports their family and community connections.

We need your help to convince the government to include this measure as part of their aged care reform. Please sign and share our petition for #PetFriendlyAgedCare.

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For more detail and to read our submission to Government

For more information about supporting pets in aged care, please visit https://petfriendlyagedcare.com.au

For more about Companion Animal Network Australia, visit https://australiacan.org.au/ or contact info@australiacan.org.au