XPost: misc.legal, can.politics, alt.support.divorce   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: hdr22@clintonemail.com   
      
   “Dogs are wonderful creatures,” read the first line of a ruling   
   from a Canadian judge.   
      
   Over the next paragraph, the judge continued singing the praises   
   of man’s best friend: Dogs are often highly intelligent, he   
   wrote. Sensitive. Active. Constant and faithful companions.   
      
   “Many dogs are treated as members of the family with whom they   
   live,” the judge noted.   
      
   But none of that matters when it comes to the court of law,   
   concluded Justice Richard Danyliuk of the Court of Queen’s Bench   
   for Saskatchewan. At least not in his court of law.   
      
   [How much is a pet dog worth? A court will soon decide.]   
      
   “After all is said and done, a dog is a dog,” Danyliuk wrote in   
   an August ruling that was recently reported by CBC News. “At law   
   it is property, a domesticated animal that is owned. At law it   
   enjoys no familial rights.”   
      
   Danyliuk would spend 15 more pages outlining why — in this case   
   of a divorcing couple arguing over what would become of their   
   pets — the court could not treat the dogs in question as   
   “children.”   
      
   The case landed in court after the wife argued that she should   
   keep their three dogs — 13-year-old Quill, 9-year-old Kenya and   
   2-year-old Willow — while allowing for visitation rights of an   
   hour-and-a-half at a time to her soon-to-be ex-husband.   
      
   Danyliuk noted that the woman’s request was “more akin to an   
   interim custody disposition than it is to a property order” and   
   that he could not comply, because for legal purposes, dogs must   
   be treated as property.   
      
   [Your dog is watching you very carefully and remembers what you   
   do]   
      
   He was firm in his ruling.   
      
   “I say without reservation that the prospect of treating pets as   
   children would be treated holds absolutely no attraction for   
   me,” Danyliuk wrote, while acknowledging that many dog owners do   
   treat their dogs as family members. “My present task is not to   
   act with emotion or to validate the personal perspective of pet   
   owners within the legal context. Rather, it is to interpret and   
   then apply the law. And for legal purposes, there can be no   
   doubt: Dogs are property.”   
      
   Danyliuk elaborated further by citing other cases and arguing   
   that dealing humanely with pets and considering them property   
   were not mutually exclusive.   
      
   In one section of the ruling, Danyliuk used what he called a   
   “somewhat ridiculous example” of butter knives to make his point   
   about “what I see as a somewhat ridiculous application.”   
      
   “I strongly suspect these parties had other personal property,   
   including household goods,” he wrote. “Am I to make an order   
   that one party have interim possession of (for example) the   
   family butter knives but, due to a deep attachment to both   
   butter and those knives, order that the other party have limited   
   access to those knives for 1.5 hours per week to butter his or   
   her toast?”   
      
   Danyliuk suggested that the case should have never landed in his   
   courtroom in the first place.   
      
   “I am sure that to [the divorcing couple], this is the most   
   important matter,” Danyliuk wrote. But, he added: “To consume   
   scarce judicial resources with this matter is wasteful. In my   
   view, such applications should be discouraged.”   
      
   David Grimm, author of “Citizen Canine: Our Evolving   
   Relationship With Cats and Dogs,” said Danyliuk’s ruling is not   
   unusual, because under U.S. and Canadian laws, animals are   
   considered property.   
      
   “Which means that they basically legally have the same status as   
   a couch or a toaster,” Grimm told The Washington Post. “That’s   
   what it is sort of in theory.”   
      
   In practice, however, things can become muddled — particularly   
   when it comes to household companion animals like cats and dogs.   
      
   In his book, which covers the evolving status pets have had   
   within the U.S. legal system, Grimm noted that pets can now be   
   beneficiaries of trusts in most American states. In a few, rare   
   instances, some animals have been assigned lawyers.   
      
   [DNA evidence helps free a service dog from death row]   
      
   In addition, Grimm also noted that all 50 states have felony   
   animal cruelty laws, and punishments in animal abuse cases are   
   up to 10 years in prison or $125,000 in fines in some states.   
      
   “Clearly, nobody’s going to fine you for setting your couch on   
   fire or taking a bat to your toaster,” Grimm said. “There are   
   things like that where clearly the law is treating animals .?.?.   
   differently than other types of property.”   
      
   That was not the case in the 1800s, however, when animal anti-   
   cruelty legislation described the offense as a misdemeanor at   
   first. Only in the last 20 to 30 years did animal cruelty become   
   a felony offense, he said.   
      
   That evolution has, in part, mirrored people’s changing   
   relationship with their household pets. People in the United   
   States spent more than $60 billion on their pets in 2015, a   
   figure that has increased steadily from about $20 billion more   
   than two decades ago, according to the American Pet Products   
   Association.   
      
   These days, dogs (and, to some extent, cats) might be sent to   
   doggy day care, eat organic pet food, attend pet spas and watch   
   dedicated TV channels. They wear clothing, appear in family   
   photos and participate in rituals and activities — vacations,   
   weddings, funerals — people typically reserve for other human   
   beings.   
      
   “We’ve sort of reached this really interesting relationship with   
   our companion animals,” Grimm said. “Just because we treat pets   
   like children [at home], does that mean we should treat them   
   like children in the eyes of the law? And I think that’s causing   
   a lot of divisions among legal scholars and in the general   
   public.”   
      
   [How do dogs’ genes affect their behavior? Your pet could help   
   scientists find out.]   
      
   The Animal Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for   
   animals’ legal interests, has argued that considering pets   
   strictly as property is too narrow of a view.   
      
   Anti-cruelty laws do not exist for toasters, evidence that the   
   law recognizes that animals deserve special protection,   
   according to ALDF attorney Stefanie Wilson.   
      
   At least one state — Alaska — has, by law, empowered courts in   
   divorce proceedings to consider the animal’s well-being in   
   making a custody determination, she added.   
      
   “Arguably, almost all courts have the discretion and authority,   
   in a divorce case, to appoint a special guardian or master to   
   consider and make recommendations for the best outcome for   
   Fido,” Wilson wrote in an email to The Post. “The law is   
   starting to catch up to the reality of the special place that   
   our pets hold in our lives and in society.”   
      
   Grimm expects to see rulings over dogs in divorce cases continue   
   to evolve, albeit more slowly than, say, animal cruelty laws did.   
      
   “Is it right that a judge says that that cat is a piece of   
   property? I think in the next few decades, this is probably   
   where the relationship with our companion animals is going to   
   get really interesting,” he said. “Decisions like this will play   
   into that.”   
      
   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/12/21/a-   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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