UrbanUpdate

During the last year of our relationship, every fight my ex and I had ended the same way, with our rescue mutt, Tilly, cowering in the corner. Exhausted and defeated, the only thing we had left in common was how bad we felt for upsetting our anxious corgi mix, so we’d re-up on a few more months of mutual unhappiness out of guilt.

When I eventually moved out, we agreed it made more sense for Tilly to stay in the apartment instead of crashing on couches. As soon as I was settled, though, I wanted some form of visitation. My ex came around, and we agreed I would get to watch her when he went out of town. Over time, this convenience allowed him to travel more, and I was more than happy for the extra days with Tilly.

As more couples opt out of or delay the traditional markers of relationship maturity (marriage, babies), many of them seem to be compensating by adopting dogs instead. When unmarried couples decide to split, however, without the formality of an official legal process to divide up the assets, figuring out who gets to walk away with the pets in tow can be especially dicey. After all, divvying up that semi-decrepit living room furniture you two found on the street is probably much less contentious than hashing out who gets the loyal Labradoodle. So, as a solution, more couples are opting to do what my ex and I did and work out an agreement wherein the dog’s time is split between both people—a dogvorce, if you will.

Besides, owning a dog requires a lot of time, work, and money—sometimes too much for one person to manage on their own. The same wage stagnation, student debt, and declining home ownership that cause couples to delay or opt out of parenthood make solo dog ownership more challenging as well. It’s not entirely surprising that millennials have figured out a way to combine these shortcomings.

When Shanna Olson broke up with her ex-fiancé ten years ago, she had no intention of sharing custody of their Pomeranian, named Kobe—that is, until she planned a vacation to Spain that she could not comfortably take without the right person to watch the dog. “I wouldn’t have been able to go if I didn’t trust [my ex] Greg so much to watch Kobe,” Olson said. “I knew he loved him as much as I do.”

In fact, their arrangement worked out so well that she got two more dogs—and Greg would watch all of them when she traveled. When all three pups eventually passed away over the years, she was too heartbroken to get another dog. The two drifted apart until recently, when they ran into each other through mutual friends. He persuaded her to get another Pomeranian, named Yum Yum, whom they now co-parent together. A decade and several small dogs later, he has keys to her apartment, visits once a week, comes by whenever Olson has to work late, and watches Yum Yum when she’s out of town.

“I wouldn’t have gotten him if Greg didn’t push me to get another dog,” Olson said. “I’m so glad I did.”

One survey found that one in 20 pet owners in relationships have a “pet nup,” a custodial agreement that stipulates who gets to keep the pet, and can also cover things like visitation schedules, ownership of vet bills, who gets to make decisions about their health, and more. Although precedent for pet nups has largely been set by married people, because dogvorces have become more common and the case law around them grows more nuanced, the parameters now apply to unmarried, cohabitating couples as well.

Both pet and legal experts agree that the ideal custody arrangement involves one primary owner who lives with the dog full-time and makes most of the decisions. Then the other “visiting” dog parent can take the dog whenever the primary goes out of town, works late, or needs extra help. In disputed scenarios where couples go to court without a pet nup, judges tend to treat dogs like property, as opposed to family, and consider who can prove they paid for or were gifted the animal first, rather than who can provide the best home for the dog.

“Allowing your dog to have a home-base will help prevent your dog from picking up behavioral issues,” dog trainer and former zookeeper Stephanie Mantilla explained. Stress and insecurity about a frequently changing environment can cause dogs to misbehave out of frustration and confusion, she warns. If the goal is for both people to have equitable time, it will usually be to the dog’s detriment. “What's best for your dog isn't necessarily what you may find fair regarding equal time.”

Texas-based divorce lawyer Michelle O'Neil agrees a 50-50 split of time with the dog would not work, and shared custody should be between one primary and one secondary owner. “One dog parent would have primary custody and the other would have every other weekend,” O'Neil recommended. “In one case, we even added a clause that the dog-dad would have the right to take care of the dog when the dog-mom was out of town.”

While this kind of arrangement makes the most sense for the dog, in my experience, the dogvorce doesn’t always work out as intended. I was jealous that my ex got to move on with his life as the primary owner, while I had to stay frozen in time to keep seeing the dog. After spending every day with Tilly for two years, the transition to being a weekends-only dog parent—with no control over her health or when my ex would drop a last-minute sitter request—was difficult to say the least. We both harbored lingering anger over the breakup, and regrettably, Tilly was the one thing left with which to hurt each other. When we’d disagree about if she needed grain-free food, he’d threaten to never let me see her again, I’d threaten to not give her back. A cute animal can make two people very ugly.

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“You both need to be comfortable that things are over and able to work together without emotions flaring,” couples therapist Raffi Bilek told me. “Otherwise it's a losing proposition.”

Olson and her ex seem to have struck this delicate balance, but even as my arrangement became more cordial with time, I still felt like a tourist in my failed relationship. I couldn’t see Tilly without going to a place—mental and physical—that made me inescapably sad. Yes, I had freedom from the daily inconveniences and financial obligations that come with having a dog, but that didn’t make saying bye to Tilly every other weekend any easier.

Now at the age of 10, as she’s gotten older and her health has declined, being on the periphery has only become more painful. Perhaps that is why almost every dog custody case O'Neil has negotiated in her 28-year career has ended the same way. “After some time passes, the visiting dog parent loses interest and the custody arrangements trail off,” O'Neil says.

My ex initially agreed to an interview for this article about how we make it work. It was not until he told me Tilly had fleas, a completely avoidable issue with routine medication that I realized it never did.

Sadly, my dogvorce did not work out in the long term, but the attempt forced me to confront a lot of painful emotions I would have otherwise buried in the deepest recessions of my brain had it not been for Tilly. Being her dog-mom every other weekend helped me gradually let go, rather than having to say goodbye at the same time I was leaving a relationship, and I would do it over again if I had to. After a breakup that could have turned two people bitter and brutal indefinitely, Tilly did what good dogs do: She made us both better.

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