Court orders that wife can retain family dog

Anyone who has a pet will know just how important the animal can be to them. So what happens when the pet’s keepers divorce? Hopefully, they can sort out who keeps the pet by agreement, but how is this decided if they can’t?

A recent case that took place in the Family Court at Manchester provides the answer.

The case concerned the final hearing of a husband’s financial remedies application, in which one of the main issues was: who should have the family dog?

As the judge explained in the case, a dog (and any other pet) is treated by the court as no more than a chattel, just the same as any other ‘object’ that the couple may possess. Accordingly, the court will not, as some divorcing couples may expect (including, perhaps, the couple in this case), decide the issue in the same way as it would decide with whom a child should live.

The dog, a female Golden Retriever, had been purchased jointly by the family (the husband, the wife, and their daughter) in May 2022, for £1200 (although, as we will see, it did not matter who paid for her).

The couple separated in November 2022. Since then the dog had been looked after solely by the wife, and been a pet for the two children of the family, who live with the wife.

In February 2024 the husband registered the dog as a disability support dog, required by him to assist with regard to his anxiety and depression. However, the judge found that the dog had never been purchased as a disability support dog, and the husband had only registered her in an effort to support his case that he should have the dog.

In December (presumably 2024) the husband forcibly took the dog from the maternal grandmother whilst she was out walking the dog. The dog ran off and the grandmother saw the husband dragging her into his car from the family home, where the dog had run back to. The husband was arrested by the police and the dog was returned with damage to her paws from being dragged away by the husband. The children were incredibly upset over the incident.

Considering the question of who should have the dog, the judge said that in her view who purchased her was not as important as who the dog saw as her carer. She found that the dog’s home was with the wife, and she should stay there – it would be upsetting for both the dog and the children were those arrangements to alter.

Accordingly, she ordered that the wife should retain ownership of the dog.

You can read the full judgment in the case here.

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