Court Determines Ownership of Pet Dog

In Duboff v. Simpson, 2021 ONSC 4970, following a couple’s separation, the court was asked to resolve a dispute over ownership of a dog.

The applicant and the respondent are both lawyers. The applicant had always wanted a rescue dog and eventually found a boxer. The respondent was working 12 hours per day and made it clear that the dog would be the applicant’s responsibility. She wrote the following message to the applicant:

As long as you can tell me you have genuinely thought about this. That you are going to have to try to take the summer off to train this dog and that afterwards she will be an ongoing expense for the next 15 years of our life. You have to think that she will come with us whatever and whenever we move.  And that sometimes we won’t be able to go places or do things because of her. If you get all that then I’m comforted.

The applicant arranged to adopt the dog and was its registered owner. He paid for most of the expenses related to the dog. He was also the dog’s primary caregiver.

Justice Papagerogiou stated that “although pets are often viewed by people as members of their family, in law they are personal property much like other chattels, even when purchased during the course of a relationship. In that regard, they are an indivisible piece of property. The relevant question is ownership, not who wants the dog more or who has more love and affection for the dog, or even who would be the best owner”.

Justice Papagerogiou noted that the traditional approach to determine who owns a dog focuses primarily on who purchased and paid for the dog and whether there are any discrete transactions where ownership changed.

However, a more recent court decision considered broader factors, in particular:

a.      Whether the animal was owned or possessed by one of the people before the relationship began;

b.      Any express or implied agreement as to ownership, made either at the time the animal was acquired or after;

c.      The nature of the relationship between the people contesting ownership at the time the animal was first acquired;

d.      Who purchased and/or raised the animal;

e.      Who exercised care and control of the animal;

f.        Who bore the burden of the care and comfort of the animal;

g.      Who paid for the expenses related to the animal’s upkeep;

h.      Whether at any point the animal was gifted by the original owner to the other person;

i.        What happened to the animal after the relationship between the litigants changed; and

j.        Any other indicia of ownership, or evidence of agreement relevant to who has or should have the ownership of the animal.

Justice Papageorgiou concluded that the applicant was the dog’s lawful owner. Her Honour declined to force the applicant to share the dog with the respondent, because a constructive trust had not been established and also because courts are not equipped to supervise the sharing of a pet.