Pet Care During Deployment: Fostering, Costs and Agreements

A deployment raises a question a PCS does not. On a move you are trying to get the animal to the same place you are going. On a deployment you are trying to leave it somewhere good for months, with someone else responsible for it, and with no certainty about exactly when you will be back. The organisations that help with this are genuinely excellent. The part that goes wrong is almost never finding someone willing, it is failing to agree in advance what happens when something unexpected occurs.

A deployment is not a PCS, and the money follows that

Start here, because the distinction is easy to miss and expensive to get wrong.

The DoD pet transportation allowance is written around a permanent change of station. A straightforward deployment, where you leave and later return to the same duty station, is not a PCS, so the $550 and $2,000 limits do not apply to boarding or transporting a pet while you are away. Families sometimes assume otherwise and are disappointed at the finance office.

There is an important exception. Among the situations the Defense Travel Management Office lists as qualifying for reimbursement to an alternate location or designated place is being assigned to an unaccompanied tour or unusually arduous sea duty, where the pet will accompany the member's dependents to a designated place. An authorised early return of dependents at Government expense is also listed. So if your absence comes with a PCS and your family and the animal are moving to a designated place, that transport may be claimable. Our guide to military pet transport reimbursement sets out the limits and the form.

If you are unsure which category your orders fall into, ask the transportation office rather than guessing, and ask before you commit to any arrangement. The difference between a deployment and an unaccompanied PCS is not always obvious from the orders themselves, and it decides whether there is any money available at all.

The realistic options

Long-term boarding is the option people reach for first and it is rarely the right answer for a full deployment. Kennel rates that look manageable per night become very large numbers over six or nine months, and months in a kennel environment is hard on most animals, particularly cats and older dogs. It works well as a bridge for a few weeks while a longer arrangement is set up.

A spouse or family member at home is the simplest arrangement and needs the least written down, though it is still worth agreeing who handles veterinary decisions if you are unreachable. Where family are not local, the question becomes whether the animal travels to them, which is a transport problem rather than a care problem and may have its own costs, covered in our guide to military pet transport. A friend or unit colleague sits somewhere in between: workable for a shorter absence, and considerably better if the animal already knows the person and the house.

The foster networks are the answer for most single members

Two established nonprofits exist specifically for this, and they are the single most useful thing to know about if you do not have family who can take the animal.

Dogs on Deployment maintains a network of volunteer boarders who take pets belonging to service members during deployments and other periods of service, matching owners with people willing to foster for the duration. PACT for Animals runs a comparable foster programme for military members and for people facing hospitalisation.

Both work on the same principle: the foster provides the home and the care, and the animal remains yours and comes back to you. Owners generally remain responsible for the costs of the animal's upkeep and veterinary care. Start early, because matching takes time and depends on someone suitable being available near enough to make handover practical.

Meet the foster in person before you commit if distance allows, and let the animal spend time in the house before the handover day. A dog that has already visited twice settles very differently from one delivered to a stranger on the morning you fly.

The agreement is the part that matters

Almost every article on this subject stops at finding someone. The problems that actually arise are about authority and money while you are unreachable, and they are entirely preventable by writing things down beforehand.

Agree who pays for routine care and how funds reach the carer, whether that is money held in advance or a card on file with the practice. Agree what happens with an unexpected veterinary bill, including a figure above which the carer should try to reach you and what they should do if they cannot. Agree who may authorise treatment, and, uncomfortable as it is, what should happen in a genuine end-of-life situation when you cannot be contacted. A carer left to make that decision without prior discussion is in an unbearable position.

Write down the practical things too. Which veterinary practice holds the records and that the carer is authorised to use it. Feeding, medication and routine. Where the microchip is registered and to whom, and whether registration should be temporarily updated with the carer's details. Vaccination status and when boosters fall due.

Your installation legal assistance office can help with the paperwork side, including a power of attorney where one is appropriate, and it is a free service. Ask early rather than in your final week, when everyone else is asking too.

What it costs, and who pays what

Fostering through a network is not a way of making the animal free. The volunteer provides the home and the day to day care; the owner generally still funds the animal's upkeep. Budget for it properly rather than treating it as solved.

Over a six to nine month deployment the real costs are food, routine preventative care such as flea and worm treatment, any ongoing medication, a vaccination booster if one falls due, and a contingency for something unexpected. That contingency is the item people leave out and it is the one that causes trouble, because a torn cruciate ligament or a dental extraction can run to four figures and will not wait for your return.

Decide how the carer accesses money. Leaving a card on file with a named veterinary practice is cleaner than expecting a volunteer to pay and be reimbursed, because asking someone doing you a favour to front a large bill is how goodwill breaks down. Set the practice up before you leave and tell them who is authorised to bring the animal in.

If you carry pet insurance, check whether cover continues when the animal is in someone else's care and make sure the carer knows the policy details and how to claim. Some owners let a policy lapse during a deployment to save money, which is precisely the period when they are least able to absorb a large bill.

Plan for the deployment being extended

The most common failure is not a bad carer. It is an arrangement made for six months that has to stretch to nine or twelve.

Ask directly, before you leave, what happens if the deployment extends. A carer who has thought about it and says they could manage another three months is very different from one who assumed a firm end date. Ask the same about their circumstances changing: a house move, a new job, a family illness. Agree what happens if they can no longer keep the animal, and identify a named fallback person who has agreed in advance.

Keep in contact during the deployment where you can. Photos and updates are good for you and they keep the carer engaged in an arrangement that can otherwise start to feel open-ended and thankless.

Preparing the animal

Send the pet's own things with it. Bed, bowls, toys, the food it already eats, and enough of that food to avoid an abrupt change in the first fortnight. Familiar objects and familiar diet reduce the two most common early problems, which are stress behaviours and digestive upset.

Bring vaccinations up to date before handover rather than leaving it for the carer, and make sure flea and worm treatment is current, particularly if the animal is joining a household that already has pets. Give the carer the full veterinary record, not a summary.

Put an emergency plan in writing as well, because a deployment can coincide with a hurricane season or a wildfire evacuation and the carer will be making decisions alone. The American Veterinary Medical Association's guidance on pets and disasters and the ASPCA's disaster preparedness advice are both worth passing on with the animal.

If you genuinely cannot find anyone

Sometimes the timeline is short, the networks have no match nearby, and family cannot help. It is a horrible position and it is worth saying plainly that there are still better options than the two people reach for under pressure.

Ask inside your unit before you look outside it. Someone who is not deploying on this rotation, or a spouse in the unit community, is often willing and is far easier to stay in contact with than a stranger. Ask your installation's family support staff as well, since they see this situation regularly and may know of local arrangements that are not advertised anywhere.

Avoid advertising an animal as free to a good home. Animals offered free online are targeted by people who resell them, and by a small number who take them for far worse reasons, and a service member under time pressure is exactly the profile such people look for. If you do have to place an animal privately, charge a fee, meet at the person's home rather than a car park, and ask questions you would expect a rescue to ask you.

Surrendering the animal to a shelter should be the last option rather than the quick one, and if it comes to that, go to a rescue or shelter that will hold or foster rather than one you have not checked. Making that call early, with a few days to choose where, produces a much better outcome than making it the night before you fly.

Coming home

Expect the reunion to be less cinematic than you have imagined it. Some animals are ecstatic immediately. Others are wary, subdued, or noticeably attached to the carer, and that is normal rather than a sign the animal has forgotten you.

Take the handover slowly if you can. Collect the animal from the carer's home rather than a car park, spend time there before leaving, and take its familiar bedding back with you. Give it a few quiet days rather than a round of introductions to everyone who wants to meet it.

If the deployment ends with orders to a new duty station rather than a return home, you are now running a move as well as a reunion, and the animal is doing both at once. Our guides to a PCS with a dog and a PCS with a cat cover that transition, and the settling period is worth expecting to take longer than usual.

Frequently asked questions