It can be simpler if my two dogs had been useless,” Sophia* tells me. In April, after 10 years collectively, she and her associate break up up, and Sophia misplaced custody of their two French bulldogs. “There is this weird grief knowing they are only 30 minutes away but I can’t see them.”
Sophia works within the accounts division of a London legislation agency, and left the dogs together with her ex when she moved out of their home. They agreed to share the pets, however she says her associate “tried to seize sole ownership” almost instantly. “He blocked access – giving excuses all the time,” she says. “He would tell me, ‘the dogs have plans’. When he did let me see them, he’d claim the dogs had come back with injuries – and he had to take them to the vet.” Eventually, her ex minimize all contact between her and the dogs. “He said [shared custody] wasn’t in the dogs’ best interests and he didn’t want to do it anymore … [but] they are my babies.”
Welcome to the brutal world of canine divorce, or what may occur if a pair doesn’t get a pet-nup – basically a prenup for pets, legally stating who will get custody of shared animals within the occasion of a breakup. According to recent figures, fewer than one in 10 {couples} who personal a canine collectively have put in place a shared custody settlement within the occasion of a potential break up. Three in 10 {couples} additionally admit they’ve by no means had the dialog about who would preserve the pet, in keeping with a examine for petcare market Rover.
That would possibly clarify why even celebrities don’t appear resistant to conditions like these. In February it was reported that Ant McPartlin and Lisa Armstrong had been combating for custody of their chocolate labrador, Hurley, regardless of the pair splitting in 2018. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard famously battled over their terriers Pistol and Bo throughout their divorce in 2016; Heard acquired to maintain the dogs after being granted custody. And it was not too long ago reported that Britney Spears and her husband Sam Asghari – who introduced their break up earlier this 12 months – have reached an settlement over the custody of the 5 dogs they shared collectively. That one at the very least appeared to be amicable.
More and extra pet house owners are additionally coming to understand a pet-nup could be important, for below UK legislation, dogs and different animals are nonetheless labeled as “chattels”. That means your cat, for instance, has the very same authorized standing as a washer or a automobile, so the courts aren’t considering figuring out an final result that might be within the pet’s finest curiosity.
“The harsh reality is that the law views pets as assets, or possessions, which means that the courts will allocate an ‘owner’,” says Sarah Hawkins, CEO of National Family Mediation (NFM) within the UK. Over the final 12 months, NFM has seen pets function in 43 per cent of mediation issues, a results of the pandemic resulting in a increase in pet possession within the UK.
In the case of a pet custody battle, a courtroom will attempt to set up possession via proof corresponding to who purchased the pet, whose identify is recorded on the microchip database, or who’s the pet’s major carer. In most circumstances, although, it’s an extremely powerful state of affairs to legally resolve.
Most dogs are delicate to human feelings and can doubtless be impacted pre- and post-separation and divorce. They do and can decide up on how every particular person feels and this may be fairly aggravating for them
Victoria Stilwell
Trevor Cooper, a solicitor with the UK’s Cooper and Co, specialises in canine legislation and says he will get 4 or 5 calls a day about possession disputes. “The worst for us is the delay in the court system since Covid, because it prolongs the agony for the person who doesn’t have the dog,” he explains. “The wait time is currently just over a year.”
When normal mediation isn’t profitable, Cooper says there are restricted choices in courtroom. “It’s often a case of a jointly owned dog… and you can’t cut the dog in half,” he says. “An option is to order [the sale of the pet] and split the proceeds,” he says – as would occur with a portray, for instance. “Or a court could hand sole custody to one party – but there is no rule of law as to how to determine this [if joint ownership is established]. The final option is a sharing arrangement – but this can only be approved by the court and is unlikely to be imposed by them.” So how do courts resolve who retains the pet? “It’s not an absolute rule of thumb”, he says, “but the longer one party has had the dog, the more likely they will be able to retain it.”
Cooper, nevertheless, wish to see the legislation modified to replicate “the importance of a family pet in our society now”, he says. “We have laws on how to resolve child custody disputes but not specific laws when it comes to dogs or cats. Pets are part of people’s families.”
If a pair doesn’t have a pet-nup in place, all hope isn’t misplaced. Amicably agreeing on joint custody can work out, as IT director Annie Snoode found with Astro, her eight-year-old shih tzu. Her relationship together with her husband “fell apart” in 2020 after eight years they usually now fortunately co-parent – albeit from completely different cities. “Astro is our child,” she says. “We were always aligned that we wanted the best for him – we took him with us on all of our holidays.”
Together, Snoode and her former husband share Astro for 3 to 6 months at a time. But Snoode has additionally since remarried, which has barely sophisticated issues. They can now not assist one another with day-to-day canine care, which means Snoode has to “juggle a lot more”, she says.
‘The harsh reality is that the law views pets as assets, or possessions, which means that the courts will allocate an “owner”’
(iStock)
While a pet divorce can create chaos between two exes, it’s additionally not straightforward on the pet themselves. Victoria Stilwell, a canine coach and behaviourist and the star of Channel 4’s The Dog Academy and Discovery+’s It’s Me or the Dog, says she usually offers with the fallout of canine divorce.
“If you are separated or preparing for a divorce and are sharing custody of a dog, it is really important that the dog’s best interests are taken into consideration and the dog is given time to get used to living in different homes,” she explains. “Most dogs are sensitive to human emotions and will likely be impacted pre- and post-separation and divorce, especially if tensions have been high before the split.
“They do and will pick up on how each person feels and this can be quite stressful for them.” Living in two completely different properties is made simpler, she provides, if related routines are saved in each locations and sure objects – corresponding to a favorite mattress or a favorite toy – will be bounced between homes together with them.
As for Sophia, since discovering the existence of “chattel” legislation, she has reluctantly determined to walk away from her former dogs. Her solely choices had been to “dognap” the pets, or go to a small claims courtroom, which might cost between £7,000 to £10,000 with authorized illustration. Neither was life like for her.
“I was told in most cases they would rule in his favour because they lived with him,” she says, including that she believed her ex had taken the pets as a solution to damage her. “I gave him the car, I let him stay in the house – I just wanted the dogs. They were the only things I cared about losing.”
*names have been modified
