In a nation of people who view pets as family members — and spent $158 billion last year on their best friends — it was inevitable that pet custody would become the next chapter in family law. We love our pets as much as we love our people — if not more. The death of a pet has shattered my heart more than any other loss.
Take Asheville, a beautiful, shaggy, black-and-white mutt. In 1993, I rescued her and her sister, Brevard, from a North Carolina highway halfway between the two cities that gave them their names. They were 4-month-old starving sacks of bones with engorged ticks dangling from their eyelids, lips and everywhere else. For the rest of her life, Ashe would sit before me like the sphinx and stare into my eyes for hours that would have extended to days if not for the necessity of moving one’s legs.
When she died at age 20, predeceasing Brevard (a.k.a. Beezie) by two years, I was so bereft I couldn’t breathe. Someone said to me, “I know you miss Ashe so much because you loved her so much.” And I replied, “No, I miss her so much because she loved me so much.” In the years after, I’ve managed the grief of burying a best buddy, a mother and my brother, but my heart still aches most for Ashe and the Beez. (And Ollie the blind poodle, among others.)
Pew Research Center says 51 percent of Americans value pets as much as they do family members. About 95 million households “owned” a pet last year, with 53 percent of all homes having a dog and 39 percent a cat. This is hardly surprising. Ask yourself: Who is always ecstatic to see you when you reenter a room from which you totally vanished just three minutes earlier?
The question of who gets the family pet during a divorce has become so common and vexing that legislatures have begun doling out custody guidelines. The underlying premise is that since pets are members of the family, their well-being should be considered in awarding custody. According to the Economist, at least eight states, including most recently Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, have taken steps to protect what’s best for pets. Last year, the Pennsylvania House passed a bill classifying pets in divorce proceedings as “living beings that are generally regarded as cherished family members.” The bill remains under consideration in the state Senate.
Obviously, dogs and cats can’t choose which parent they prefer, nor would they want to, assuming neither human is abusive. Like children, dogs (and maybe cats) adore both parents and are never more content than when everyone is together and no one is mad. My husband and I should know. We are the parents of five dogs, three cats (who think they’re dogs), and four birds who live like royalty and hate us.
To be perfectly honest, I am the better parent because I cook their food and let them sleep with me. (I need a bigger bed.) The Husband, meanwhile, takes the dogs on golf cart rides and long walks twice a day, so they probably like him best in those moments. Our cats also go on the walks, slinking along a few steps behind like black-clad Secret Service agents in a presidential parade. If we tried to split up this odd little troupe, our neighbors would protest and likely take us to court. If we were forced to divide our pack, we’d cancel the divorce. So that’s that, I guess.
But do we really need courts to settle our personal pet policies? People think nothing of sharing custody of their children. Why not the same for pets?
For divorcing couples and their pets, arbitration should be a first step during family disunity. As reported by the Economist, the pet can become leverage for negotiating better terms in other areas. You can have the dog, but I get the tractor. Okay! In Delaware, a judge gave an expensive goldendoodle to the highest bidder, which sounds a lot like a property transaction. Some proponents of official custody arrangements have argued for pet support to the custodial parent. A New York divorcée with custody of the couple’s two dogs receives $1,000 per month in financial support. (Let’s see, that would be $2,500 to me just for the pups.)
Admittedly, pet custody isn’t the stickiest wicket of the day, but granting human (not just humane) considerations to pets signals a potentially problematic trend. American birth rates are at a record low — just 1.6 babies per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement rate. Already, there are more households with pets than with children, and 48 percent of Gen Zers see no difference between their pets and children. It’s easy to imagine pets replacing babies in the future family unit of choice. Of course, the expensive little secret in our household is that we spend more on our pets than we do on ourselves.
On the bright side, if you’re our pets, we can’t afford a divorce!
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