Family & Divorce Solicitors

Animals and Divorce

By Vanessa Lloyd Platt - Divorce Lawyer

This week we heard from the Pet Rescue Service how animals feel torn apart by divorce. The wholeissue of animals in divorce is becoming an ever increasing factor for us divorce lawyers to consider anddeal with. In the first instant we have a raft of cases where animals have been or are the cause of the marriage breakdown. In these cases truth is a lot stranger than fiction.

So, for example, where one woman was simply not prepared to keep sharing her bedroom with her husband's pet tarantula, the marriage had to end. Neither of the parties would budge on the issue and the wife stated that having a tarantula in a case at the side of her bed was too terrifying to contemplate further and amounted to unreasonable behaviour.

In another case the husband's allergy to the family pet was not an issue that the wife would allow to get in the way of her love for her cat. Again, the fact that she would encourage the cat to sleep in the bed, thereby causing his eyes to swell on a daily basis, was too much for him and he left the home, the wife and for him, happily, the cat.

Perhaps the most strange case was one in which the wife believed that her husband had an unusually close relationship with a sheep. When asked what evidence she had of this, she retorted that he was always coming home covered in wool! In fact his friendship was with an angora wearing Swedish au pair and dolly the sheep did not feature at all! For divorce lawyers cases like these make them believe that they deserve every penny of their charge out fee.

However, more pertinent are the raft of cases where animals are the subject matter of a custody
dispute. Put simply, who should keep the dog, cat, llamas, goldfish, hamsters, birds etc.? Increasingly,
lawyers are having to intervene and resolve the issue inter solicitor or, more strangely, through the
Courts.
Animals are regarded as chattels for the purposes of legal argument and Judges are having to apply the
wisdom of Solomon to these sad situations. Luckily no Judge has suggested sawing any animals in two.
More often they will make the decision based on what is in the children's best interests. Often men
complain that not only have they lost the home and the children, but also the family pet, since the
children should not be parted from them. Sometimes they will swap the stereo system for the family
dog or trade off another one of their treasures (in one case his golf clubs) for the benefit of animal
companionship.
In one case the wife objected to her husband retaining the dog on the basis that it would be too
traumatic for Roger the Rottweiler to witness the husband with his new girlfriend. She stated that Roger
might attack the girlfriend and that she could not be responsible for this occurrence. In the end the
husband bought himself a new dog and Roger felt totally rejected and abandoned by the husband's new
best friend.
Judges here are more sensible in their approach t han our American counterparts where substa ntial
psychologica l evidence is being produced to the Court, with dog psychiatrist s giving evidence for days on
end and Judges testing the dog's allegiance by whose call they answer. Some doggy cheats have been
exposed rubb ing sa usage meat on their hands, t hereby entiCing the dogs to go to them. Happily t his has
not been adopted here.

Pet rescue cent res are seei ng an increase in the number of distressed animals who are showing signs of trauma from divorce. Dogs will continuously sc ratch t hemselves or revert ba ck to bad behaviour.
Increasingly animal behaviourists are being ca lled in to assist with unruly animal behaviour and have identified the ca use as being stress in the home or a pet pin ing for his or her lost owner or ch ildren.
Lawyers are now including the cost of therapists and trainers in some cases as reasonable future
expenditure.

Pet insurance policies, whilst covering the cost of alternative therapies, hydrotherapy and homeopathy have not yet seemingly extended to psyc hiatric care. But it is only a matter of time !

Holly Lee from the Kennel Club of Great Britain has confirmed t hat dogs can be totally traumatised at the loss of a fami ly member and t he family brea kup. They have a sensitivity that is quite often overlooked in divorce. The pain that some animals experience should not be under estimated and Holly is of the view, t hat not enough lateral thinking is applied to these situations. She would recommend that couples consider a sensible regime for living arrangements to be shared between the parties, so that contact can be retained by everyone. Not only does this make happier dogs, but the children can benefit from the familiarity of the family pets in both places.

When joint residence was agreed to the children by a husband and wife, the only remaining dispute was the issue of where Sticky the stick insect should live. The parties were stuck on Sticky's residence which was finally resolved by agreeing to likewise share him. Wherever Tommy lived, so would Sticky who was very content at this and everyone lived happily ever after.

? Vanessa Lloyd Platt 2009