Pets and Their Troublingly Ambiguous Status in Maryland Divorce Law

FOR YOUR PRACTICE | FAMILY LAW

NOT QUITE A MEMBER OF THE FAMILY:

Pets and Their Troublingly Ambiguous Status in Maryland Divorce Law

BY TRISTAN R. MADDEN, ESQ.

58

MSBA.ORG | VOLUME 8 ISSUE 1

GROWING UP, LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I had a pet dog, a Scottish Terrier named Maisie.

On a spiritual and emotional level, Maisie was just another member of the family. However, legally speaking, Maisie was not part of my family. Had my parents divorced, the courts of Maryland would not have treated Maisie like their child or dependent. The courts would have treated her as chattel, a thing to divide under the Marital Property Act. This is because Maisie, like all pets, was a piece of property, not a person.1 Yet, it is not that simple. Pets may be property, but there is a world of difference between a Ford Fiesta and a Cocker Spaniel. A car is a lifeless machine a person can buy, sell, or discard without a pang of guilt or shame. A dog is a living thing capable of experiencing and expressing a wide range of emotions. If someone treated their dog like they treated their car, most observers would, justifiably, judge that person in the harshest possible terms.

Maryland law does, to a certain extent, recognize this distinction: Animals might be property, but people cannot use and discard them without limitation. Animal abuse, for example, is a criminal offense in Maryland and has been for decades.2 None of this is surprising. We all intuitively know animals are different from objects, and it is to be expected that the law would recognize this distinction. What is surprising, at least from my perspective as a family law attorney, is that the law has little or nothing to say about how animals, specifically family pets, should be treated in the context of a domestic proceeding.

Maryland’s Family Law Article is virtually silent when it comes to family pets. A victim of domestic violence can, for example, request temporary custody of a pet as relief in a protective order proceeding, but that is as specific as the code gets when it comes to animals in a domestic context.3 Critically, when it comes to the assessment and equitable distribution of property, the law makes no distinction between pets and lifeless objects.4 This is deeply problematic because, in the entirely likely scenario that title to marital property is

Pets may be property, but there is a world of difference between a Ford Fiesta and a Cocker Spaniel. jointly held, the court’s options under the Marital Property Act are heavily circumscribed; generally, the only remedy would be to, like King Solomon, “split the baby” and order the asset sold and the proceeds divided between the parties. While that approach works perfectly fine for a house or a car, it is downright grotesque when talking about a beloved pet. Of course, you could make the argument that a family pet is “family-use property” as defined under Fam. Law §8-201 which would allow the court to freely transfer ownership of the disputed animal to one party or the other.5 And indeed, there is evidence to suggest that Maryland courts are able and willing to classify pets as familyuse property.

In Mueller v. Mueller, an unreported 2024 Appellate Court of Maryland opinion, a wife appealed the trial court’s decision to award her husband ownership of one of the family dogs. The trial court determined the dog was family use property subject to transfer under Fam. Law §8-205(a)(ii). On appeal, the wife argued that the family acquired the dog with funds she inherited from her father and therefore it could not be considered marital property. The court rejected this argument on the grounds that the wife had failed to present sufficient evidence tracing the funds used to purchase the animal to her inheritance. The court’s ruling in Mueller, while concerned with the dog’s broader status as “marital property” rather than the lower court’s decision to classify it as “family-use property,” is nonetheless encouraging, as it can be seen as a tacit acknowledgment that a trial court has the power

1 See Moore v. Meyers, 161 Md. App. 349, 369 (2005) (“[D]ogs are chattel under Maryland law, as elsewhere.”).

2 See Md. Code Ann. Crim. Law § 10-604 (2021).

3 See Md. Code Ann., Fam. Law (hereinafter Fam. Law) § 4-506(d)(13) (2019) (“The final protective order may . . . award temporary possession of any pet of the person eligible for relief or the respondent[.]”).

4 See Fam. Law §8-201 et seq.

5 See Fam. Law § 8-205(a)(2)(ii).acknowledgment

MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL | VOLUME 8 ISSUE 1 59

to assign ownership of an animal, even if title is jointly held or otherwise ambiguous.

Of course, an unreported opinion that only indirectly touches on the issue of whether pets can be classified as family-useproperty resolves nothing, and I have serious doubts that such a classification would be upheld if directly challenged on appeal: In defining the term, the Maryland Family Law Article provides a list of items that can be considered family-use property: “motor vehicles, furniture, furnishings, and household appliances.” Pets are not mentioned, and it is entirely unclear whether the legislature meant this list to be exhaustive or merely illustrative of what constitutes family-use property.

Even if we could safely say that courts have the discretion to classify pets as family-use property, a more troubling question remains: Is such a classification even appropriate when talking about living creatures? As the phrase suggests, familyuse-property is concerned with the utility of the property in relation to the family unit; it does not spare much thought for the property itself: (a) In awarding the possession and use of the family home and family use personal property, the court shall consider each of the following factors: (1) the best interests of any child; (2) the interest of each party in continuing: (i) to use the family-use personal property or any part of it, or to occupy or use the family home or any part of it as a dwelling place; or (ii) to use the family-use personal property or any part of it, or to occupy or use the family home or any part of it for the production of income; and (3) any hardship imposed on the party whose interest in the family home or family use personal property is infringed on by an order issued under §§ 8-207 through 8-213 of this subtitle.6

Dogs and cats are companions, not tools that exist purely for the benefit of a family. None of the factors listed above stops to consider the well-being of the animal: What is the respective ability of each party to care for the animal? Are there concerns about or a history of animal abuse? As a family law attorney, I see these gaps in the law as more than just a moral conundrum; they actively prevent me from properly advising my clients. Right now, I cannot confidently tell them how a court would approach a dispute over pet ownership, and that, in turn, makes it more difficult to negotiate any kind of settlement with the other side.

Current demographic trends in the United States make this lack of clarity even more concerning: Birthrates have been declining year after year.7 Pet ownership, by contrast, has been steadily increasing, with the number of cats and dogs in American households increasing by 45% between 1996 and 2025.8 In light of these demographic changes, it is well within the realm of possibility that, in the next decade or so, the average “custody dispute,” so to speak, will center around a dog or a cat, rather than a human child. If or when we pass that event horizon, it will be imperative that our laws address a pet’s unique status as both a piece of property and a living thing worthy of dignity and respect. In the meantime, unfortunately, Maryland family law attorneys like myself must be content grasping at straws. ________ This article first appeared in the MSBA Family Law Section’s winter 2026 newsletter. ____________ Tristan Madden graduated from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in 2021 and thereafter served as the law clerk to the Honorable Judge Charles Blomquist of the Baltimore City Circuit Court from 2022 to 2023. Since 2023, he has been an associate attorney with Abramson and Rand, LLC in Columbia, Maryland, where he represents clients in domestic litigation across the State.

6 Fam. Law §8-208(b)(1)-(3).

7 See Will Croxton, The trends behind the historically low U.S. Birth Rate, CBS News (Aug. 17, 2025, 7:00 PM), www.cbsnews.com/news/trends-behind-historically-low-us-birth-rate-60minutes/.

8 See Malinda Larkin, Evolving pet owner economics: What data reveal for veterinary teams, American Veterinary Medical Association (October 15, 2025), www.avma.org/news/ evolving-pet-owner-economics-what-data-reveal-veterinary-teams.

60

MSBA.ORG | VOLUME 8 ISSUE 1