Ownership battle over pet dog .
A cute rescue dog is at the centre of an extraordinary custody battle after he was returned to an animal shelter
THE little dog snoozes peacefully in a patch of sunlight on the couch, blissfully unaware of the legal storm raging around him. Police, court bailiffs and judges have all become involved in the custody battle being fought over him, but to no avail – two years on it still isn’t clear who owns him.
Jock, as they call him, has been living with the Hargraves family in Somerset West in greater Cape Town since December 2015. “He’s part of our family,” Lourenza Hargraves tells us. “The children are crazy about him. He even rides along to school and back.”
Lourenza and her husband, Jonathan, adopted the pup from an animal shelter. For the couple and their kids – an eightyear-old and a 10-year-old – it was love at first sight. But now they’re worried they might lose Jock.
While the Hargraves were bonding with the new addition to their family, Nickey van der Walt from Cape Town was missing the dog he knew as Zues. Nickey and ex-girlfriend Bianca Krukenberg adopted him in June 2015 from Fisantekraal Animal Welfare (FAW). When they broke up a short time later, Bianca, who was the dog’s owner, took Zues back to FAW and it wasn’t long before he was adopted by the Hargraves family, who at the time knew nothing about his previous owners.
Nickey is now taking the matter to the high court in Cape Town to get Zues back.
“We don’t think this is fair towards people who adopt an animal to give it a better life,” Lourenza says about Nickey’s claim. Jonathan and Lourenza don’t want their family’s pictures published because their young son and daughter are already upset by the experience and they don’t want to expose them further.
“I’m not one for the spotlight. It was awful to read about the court case in the newspaper and see our names there,” Lourenza says.
They’re going to fight in court to keep Jock. “What we’re going through isn’t nice because we love Jock very much, but the precedent this case might set is almost a worse prospect.”
It might deter other people from adopting pets from shelters, she says.
NICKEY’S first challenge almost two years ago was to find out who’d adopted Zues. The matter went to the high court which ruled in his favour, ordering FAW to supply him with the Hargraves’ details.
“It’s a difficult issue and it’s taking its toll, but I’m not going to throw in the towel,” says Nickey, an information systems technician.
Zues had been living with him and Bianca in the home they’d bought in Table View, Cape Town, for only three months when the couple ended their relationship. “We couldn’t register the
dog in two people’s names, so Zues is listed as Bianca’s in the adoption contract.”
After they split he and Bianca agreed in writing that Zues would live with him. But when neighbours told Bianca that Nickey wasn’t looking after him properly, she went back to the home they once shared to fetch the dog.
The locks had been changed since she’d moved out so she lifted Zues through an open window.
Allegations that she stole the dog and gave him away to get back at Nickey are untrue, she maintains. The house had been registered in both their names and Zues was registered in hers, she emphasises. “I asked FAW for advice. They said Zues was in my name and therefore my responsibility.”
In addition to Zues she had a Chihuahua but she says her new landlord told her she could keep only one dog on the property.
“So I was left with no other option than to tearfully return Zues to the shelter. The hardest part for me was giving him back,” Bianca says. “But looking at him now in the loving home he’s in I know I did the right thing.”
Nickey denies neglecting Zues and says the neighbours’ sworn affidavits, in which they allege he locked the dog in the garage all day, are nonsense. “I have a doggie door from the garage to the living room and a doggie door from there to the backyard. Zues wasn’t locked in.”
He initially laid charges of burglary and theft against Bianca, but later dropped them after mediation.
“Nickey took the matter to court, accusing me of breaking into my own house and stealing my own dog. The legal fees cost me more than R15 000,” Bianca says.
“Bianca alleges I neglected Zues but shortly after we broke up she wanted to go on holiday and asked me if her other dog could stay with me,” Nickey says.
It’s a pity the Hargraves have unwittingly been drawn into the debacle, he adds. He showed up unannounced at their home in late December with an attorney’s letter demanding they return Zues, Lourenza claims. “In newspapers he also said he regrets the situation and wouldn’t take the dog away if he’s in a loving home, but mere days later he showed up, threatening us with the police.”
“Zues is Nickey’s rightful property and according to law, Nickey can claim Zues from wherever he is,” says Nickey’s lawyer, Butch van Blerk, in response to this. “Thus the letter to the Hargraves’ followed, in which we demand they hand Zues over.”
Lourenza recalls how upset the family was that day. “It’s a few days before Christmas and someone shows up with an attorney’s letter threatening to take our dog. Luckily our neighbour is a lawyer and told us they have no legal grounds for their claim.
“My kids were traumatised and Christmas was a rather sad affair. Who shows up just before Christmas Day and tries to take away your young children’s dog under false pretences?”
Lourenza says even worse was the day in February when the bailiff showed up at their house, again demanding they hand Jock over. “They were rude and nasty and said if I didn’t give them Jock, I’d be in contempt of court. They called the police and wouldn’t show me the paperwork authorising them to take Jock.”
Lourenza stood her ground, refusing to hand over the dog, and they left.
In March the magistrate’s court in Somerset West ruled that Nickey could not bring his urgent application to get the dog back there and should go through the high court.
In addition to being ordered to pay the Hargraves’ legal fees, Nickey was told the dog would continue to live with the family until the matter is resolved.
Since then Nickey has adopted a new dog, Ballas, who keeps him company along with his parrot, he says. But he’s determined to pursue the case in the high court.
“There were times when I wanted to give up. But I won’t,” he says firmly.
Lourenza is equally resolute. “Jock’s been living with us for nearly 16 months,” she says. “We can’t let him go, we love him dearly, especially the kids with whom he plays every day and sleeps with every night.”
‘He’s part of our family. The children are crazy about him. He even rides along to school’’