Doggie divorce: Who gets pet when couples split?
WASHINGTON — The divorce court judge was frustrated. The husband, in tears. The wife, adamant. The couple’s love for each other had ended, but each professed to love and want the dog. How would the judge decide?
The husband offered thousands of dollars to his soon-to-be-ex for the pit bull terrier mix named Sweet Pea. The wife wouldn’t accept the compensation, and insisted the dog was hers — a gift, in fact, from her husband.
“This was a mutt they got at the pound, and it wasn’t worth money,” said family attorney Erin Levine of Oakland, California, who represented the husband and said the judge gave her grief for not settling the dispute out of court in the 2015 case. “There was no way we weren’t going to litigate this; they were so attached to the dog.”
The woman produced a greeting card from her husband saying “This (dog) is your gift for Christmas. I love you.” Finally, the judge gave her custody of Sweet Pea. Her husband, Levine remembered in an interview, was inconsolable.
It’s that kind of messy pet custody case that a new California law is supposed to help solve. Former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, owner of two “first dogs,” corgi mix Lucy and bordoodle Cali, signed the bill, which took effect Jan. 1. It outlines criteria judges can use to determine what’s best for the dog.
The law allows people to petition for custody of a pet. It empowers judges to take into consideration the care of the pet when determin- ing sole or joint ownership. Questions like “who walked the dog?” and “who took the cat to vet appointments?” are now permissible criteria for determining custody.
While pets are not considered children and are technically property, the California law, recognizing what it calls pets’ “unique nature,” sets up special assessments that judges can use to determine custody in contested cases.
Only Alaska and Illinois have similar statutes, both of which took effect in 2017. But the California law is the most specific, and at least a handful of other states are looking to it as a model.
“This is something I think you could see creeping up in statehouses across the country,” said Crystal Moreland, California state director for the Humane Society of the United States. “Once California gets involved in something, you tend to have a national effect.”
There’s apparently plenty of need for the laws. A 2014 survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers showed that respondents reported a 22 percent increase in pet custody hearings in the preceding five years.
Dogs were the most disputed family animal, with 88 percent of the cases. Cats were a distant second at 5 percent. Horses made up 1 percent, while the category of “other” registered 6 percent — including an iguana, python, African grey parrot and even a giant 130-pound turtle.
“Do we want to treat them like humans? No, but we don’t want the pet considered like the couch either.”