Whose Dog Is That? Delaware Courts Wade Into Pet Custody Fights

The country’s premier corporate law court, which routinely confronts the obduracy of controlling billionaires, is finding pet owners no less intractable in their deal-making.

A conflict over ownership of the goldendoodle Tucker pushed Delaware’s Chancery Court into an emerging area of animal law where property rights bump into society’s evolving perception of pets as family members.

Vice Chancellor Bonnie W. David ordered a private auction for Tucker, the subject of a series of Delaware court disputes since his owners split in 2022. Where judges in other states favored a pet’s “best interests” in similar fights, David found Delaware’s default “partition” rules the best resolution for the entrenched disputants.

Still, David “flat-out said this is a living and breathing being that needs care, and that is a pretty big step forward in these types of cases,” said Rebecca Glenn-Dinwoodie, a Pennsylvania attorney practicing animal and family law.

Delaware considers dogs personal property. It’s also one of eight states allowing courts to consider companion animals’ best interests when divorces require division of property.

No state addresses what to do about pets when unmarried co-owners separate.

David’s decision to award Tucker to the highest-bidder—only the estranged couple involved will participate—seems cold. But a careful reading of her Nov. 14 opinion reveals how a best-interest standard upheld in other states’ courts colored the case even if David ultimately defaulted to partition law, said Michelle Pardo of Duane Morris LLP.

The judge recognized the equity court could override a presumption of partition if evidence showed one party couldn’t care for Tucker, Pardo said. Since David found both parties equally capable, “that’s why, I think, the court put the onus on the parties.”

Tucker’s Case

Joseph Nelson and Karen Callahan acquired the goldendoodle—a mix between a poodle and a golden retriever—while dating. Had they married, a family court would’ve applied a 2023 Delaware law allowing a judge dividing marital property to consider a companion animal’s “well-being.”

When Nelson kept Tucker post-breakup, Callahan reclaimed the dog through the justice of the peace court. It decided she was the rightful owner, but two other courts found the couple shared ownership. Callahan went to Chancery Court in 2024 seeking a “partition” remedy from the venue for civil cases where damages don’t resolve a conflict.

David’s decision won’t split the dog in two—she wanted the couple to figure out what to do. When they couldn’t agree, she ordered an auction where the highest bidder gets Tucker, and the other person is compensated. She appointed a neutral attorney to oversee the auction.

None of the “well-being” factors available for the Delaware Family Court when married pet owners split “provide a basis to deviate from the presumption of an auction” in Tucker’s case, David’s Nov. 14 opinion said.

Best Interests

In Delaware divorces, considering a companion animal’s well-being includes evaluating each party’s ability to provide care, its attachment to each party, and the time and effort each party spent tending to its needs.

Courts in states with similar laws look at whose name is on veterinarian records or adoption paperwork. Then they ask, “Who takes the dog on a walk? Who’s the one who picks out the horse’s stall? Who’s the one who gives the diabetic cat their injections? Who’s doing all these things that are necessary for the care of an animal that don’t show up on paperwork?” Glenn-Dinwoodie said.

Courts have been sympathetic to pet owners in applying “best-interest” standards, but also wary of extending the same resources available in child custody cases—such forensic evaluations, expert witnesses, or guardians ad litem, Pardo said.

This year, the American Bar Association called for provisions ensuring “the safety, well-being, and best interest of pets in domestic relations proceedings” when assigning ownership, as part of a resolution aimed at protecting victims of domestic violence.

‘Mrs. Abigail Sparklepants’

David found neither a “best-interests” standard nor consideration of Nelson’s and Callahan’s financial portfolios should trump a “value-maximizing auction.” The cases she cited illustrate the complexity of animal law disputes playing out in courtrooms nationwide.

A miniature dachshund named Dennis Hopper had “the same legal status as a piece of furniture,” according to a 2013 Delaware Superior Court decision reversing a lower court’s granting ownership to an ex-boyfriend. The same court in 2009 found damages sought by the owner of a Yorkshire terrier named Peanut, injured by a neighbor’s three-legged bloodhound, were limited by Peanut’s market value and couldn’t be measured comparable to an injured human.

A border collie in Connecticut in 2024 went home with the ex-boyfriend because the court found he supported Bear financially better than his ex-girlfriend. Glenn-Dinwoodie advises unmarried pet owners to sign an agreement clarifying who’d care for the animal after a separation.

In a 1976 divorce case in Louisiana, an appeals court affirmed an order directing the ex-wife to surrender a car and a dog in a partition auction. Over 40 years later, the same court upheld an ex-boyfriend’s ownership of a dog named Mrs. Abigail Sparklepants. One judge on that panel dissented, saying the trial court that found partition too “drastic” shouldn’t have intervened.

David and the other judges couldn’t seem to help adding personal commentary in their footnotes. In Peanut’s case, the judge wrote the terrier’s owner “could not find a more avid dog lover than the judge assigned to this case.” But she was “still duty-bound to apply the law that establishes that a dog—or any pet for that matter—is personal property, not a person.”

Such comments show how judges directly express discomfort with the statutory limits available when a companion animal is the subject of a dispute, said Megan Senatori, executive director of the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark Law School.

“It is undisputed that Tucker is a very good boy,” David wrote in a footnote.