A veterinary file holds a detailed history of an animal and almost nothing about who is allowed to decide for it. Clinics around the valley run into that gap at the worst moments. An owner is in the hospital after a fall and a neighbor arrives with the dog. A long time client dies and three relatives show up with three different plans for the cats. The medical record answers none of it, because the answer lives in documents most pet owners never get around to writing.
The first piece is simple and routinely skipped. Name the person who takes the animal, in writing, and tell that person where the records, the medication and the food are. The second piece is money. Nevada, like most states, allows a trust to include provisions for the care of an animal, funded with a set amount and administered by someone named for the job. A durable power of attorney can also authorize another person to make decisions and spend money on an owner's behalf while the owner is alive but temporarily unable to act, which is the scenario a clinic sees far more often than a death.
There is a version of this that lives at the front desk rather than in a law office. Ask the clinic to note an authorized person on the file, someone who can consent to treatment and be billed for it. Give a dollar range you are comfortable authorizing for emergency care without a phone call. If the animal boards regularly, make sure the boarding forms name the same person the file does. None of that replaces the legal documents, and all of it buys time in the first twelve hours, which is usually when the decision cannot wait.
The estate side moves slower. When an owner dies, assets generally pass through probate, and probate runs on a court calendar rather than on the schedule of an animal that needs feeding tonight. That is the argument for handling the animal outside the will, through a named caretaker and a funded arrangement that can operate immediately. Owners who want that language drafted properly can start with a firm that does the work locally. O'Reilly Law Group, a Las Vegas firm that lists probate alongside tax and estate planning is one place readers can look, and there are others in town worth calling.
Two steps close the loop. Put a copy of the caretaker instructions in the pet's file at the clinic, where somebody will actually find it. Then revisit the arrangement whenever the household changes, since a plan written for one senior cat rarely fits the three animals that arrived after it.