Forget the kids; more and more couples are going to court for custody of pets.
Who gets custody? That's the question being asked in courtrooms across the country, and in many cases, it has nothing to do with kids.
It's a trend that's been on the rise for decades, playing out in court TV shows and movies, like the scene in"Legally Blonde.""The problem is the change of the family. There aren't kids to fight over anymore. So many couples choose not to have children. And so the pet, the companion animal, does become the child substitute," Favre said.
Meanwhile, Forbes Advisor reports that U.S. households with pets jumped from 56% in 1988 to 66% as of 2023, with millennials making up the largest percentage of pet owners at 33%, followed by Gen X'ers at 25% and Baby Boomers at 24%."I remember one time I had a phone call from a woman who said, you know, her life depended upon her getting custody from her husband in a divorce.
Christopher Berry is a managing attorney at the Animal Legal Defense Fund. And so far in 2023, lawmakers have introduced pieces of legislation in Tennessee and Pennsylvania that would ask judges to consider what's best for the pet. And Berry says more states will likely follow suit. Karis Nafte is a pet custody mediatorand animal behavior expert who has spent nearly 30 years working with families and their pets.She says it is crucial that couples discuss who should keep the pet in the case of a separation from the very beginning—instead of a prenup, it's a 'pet-nup.'
"For me, the sad part about that story is, it sort of pushes the narrative that it should be a fight, that it's okay to fight about it, but it's like normal to fight about it because a famous person did. And that's just a shame, because it doesn't need to be like that. It absolutely doesn't. You shouldn't feel righteous that you should fight about something like that," Nafte said.
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