’I’m taking the dog’
RUFF SPLIT: When couples with pets break up
Legally Blonde fans remember the scene in which Reese Witherspoon’s character Elle Woods, a Harvard law student, helps reunite her friend Paulette Belafonte (played by Jennifer Coolidge) with her bulldog, Rufus.
Elle lectures Paulette’s ex about common-law marriage and the equitable division of assets. “Huh?” he asks quizzically.
“I’m taking the dog, dumba-,” Paulette yells as she grabs her beloved pooch and runs for the car.
It’s a moment that gets played out all the time in real life.
As couples now tend to put off marriage and children, getting a pet has become a big step for many couples.
“I felt like getting a dog together was more solid than a ring,” said Liz Szwejbka, a 25-year-old social worker from Buffalo, N.Y., of getting her dog, Moose, with her boyfriend.
Sharing a pet can teach couples a lot about their compatibility. “You’re forced to negotiate more, trust each other more,” psychotherapist and relationship counsellor Rachel Dack said. “It’s a great way to gauge your capability as a team.”
But relationship experts warn it’s important to wait until your relationship is sure to go the distance before adding a furry family member.
Pets introduce time, financial and travel constraints. Restless puppies waking you up at all hours and expensive boarding facilities and finding little “gifts” on the new carpet can all create stress in the relationship.
“If you’re concerned about your relationship, speak up about that before you involve a pet,” Dack said.
If the relationship ends, often both people want to keep the pet, but maintaining joint custody post-breakup can be problematic. For one, “it drags out contact that is not useful for the person who is struggling to move on,” Dack said.
Chief executive of Exclusive Matchmaking Susan Trombetti stressed that after a separation, it’s important to let yourself heal.
Who should ultimately end up with the pet depends on who can best care for it. “You have to have the pet’s best interest at heart,” Trombetti said.
Mary Flaherty, a 26-year-old from Arlington, Virginia, was left to care for a dog and cat alone after she and her ex broke up.
“He said I should take the animals. He didn’t even offer to do anything,” she said. Ultimately, she decided the animals would have a better quality of life living with her mother.
If neither person can provide adequate care for the animal, sometimes giving it up becomes the only option, as was the case with Chris Michaels.
After the 25-year-old truck driver in Binghamton, N.Y., parted with his girlfriend, their individual time and financial constraints became an issue. “Since she wasn’t able to take care of them and neither am I because of my job, the only option was to surrender them (to a shelter),” he said. “But both have been adopted into loving homes since then.”
According to Matt Williams of the Humane Rescue Alliance, while breakups aren’t the main reason people surrender pets, it’s a contributing factor.
When individuals are having issues tending to a pet alone but don’t want to relinquish them, the shelter will work with them to figure out their options and help create a care plan, he said.
While discussing the possibility of the relationship failing isn’t anyone’s idea of fun, having a contingency plan in place in advance can lessen some of the burdens of a breakup.
“A very common, painful dimension in the breakup is ‘But we have this pet together, what do we do?’ ” said therapist Elisabeth LaMotte. “I think it’s very important to discuss what you would do if the relationship doesn’t last.”
Liz Szwejbka’s sister Marissa Szwejbka, a 27-year-old teacher in Buffalo, took legal action after a broken engagement to gain custody of her dog, Charlie.
As in Legally Blonde, Marissa Szwejbka enlisted the help of a friend in law school. “She helped me draft a division of the assets which outlined everything, including me keeping Char,” she said. Her former fiancé eventually signed the contract and relinquished his rights to the furry asset.
Sometimes the simplest solution proves to be the most effective. Liz Szwejbka joked, “We have said before: If we break up, the victim gets Moose.”