Delaware Courts Address Pet Custody Disputes: Who Owns That Dog?
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 has pushed Delaware’s Chancery Court into an emerging area of animal law where property rights intersect with 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. While judges in other states have favored a pet’s “best interests” in similar disputes, David determined that Delaware’s default “partition” rules provided 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,” noted Rebecca Glenn-Dinwoodie, a Pennsylvania attorney specializing in animal and family law.
Delaware considers dogs personal property, but it is also one of eight states allowing courts to consider companion animals’ best interests when divorces require division of property. However, no state currently addresses what to do about pets when unmarried co-owners separate.
David’s decision to award Tucker to the highest bidder—limited to the estranged couple involved—may seem cold. However, a careful reading of her Nov. 14 opinion reveals how a best-interest standard upheld in other states’ courts influenced the case, even if David ultimately defaulted to partition law, according to Michelle Pardo of Duane Morris LLP.
The judge recognized that the equity court could override a presumption of partition if evidence showed one party couldn’t care for Tucker. Since David found both parties equally capable, “that’s why, I think, the court put the onus on the parties,” Pardo explained.
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 have 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, which decided she was the rightful owner. However, two other courts found the couple shared ownership. Callahan subsequently 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. A neutral attorney was appointed 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 stated.
Best Interests
In Delaware divorces, considering a companion animal’s well-being includes evaluating each party’s ability to provide care, the pet’s attachment to each party, and the time and effort each party spent tending to its needs.
Courts in states with similar laws examine whose name is on veterinarian records or adoption paperwork. They also ask, “Who takes the dog on a walk? Who picks out the horse’s stall? Who gives the diabetic cat their injections? Who performs all these necessary tasks that don’t show up on paperwork?” Glenn-Dinwoodie explained.
While courts have been sympathetic to pet owners in applying “best-interest” standards, they remain cautious about extending the same resources available in child custody cases—such as forensic evaluations, expert witnesses, or guardians ad litem, according to Pardo.
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 that neither a “best-interests” standard nor consideration of Nelson’s and Callahan’s financial portfolios should override 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 that reversed a lower court’s granting ownership to an ex-boyfriend. Similarly, in 2009, the same court found that 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 could not be measured comparably 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 would 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, arguing that the trial court’s finding of partition was too “drastic.”
David and other judges have often added personal commentary in their footnotes. In Peanut’s case, the judge noted that the terrier’s owner “could not find a more avid dog lover than the judge assigned to this case.” However, 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 reflect judges’ discomfort with the statutory limits when a companion animal is involved in a dispute, according to 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.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Kay in Philadelphia at jkay@bloombergindustry.com. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Carmen Castro-Pagán at ccastro-pagan@bloomberglaw.com; Andrew Harris at aharris@bloomberglaw.com
Copyright 2026 Bloomberg.
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 has pushed Delaware’s Chancery Court into an emerging area of animal law where property rights intersect with 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. While judges in other states have favored a pet’s “best interests” in similar disputes, David determined that Delaware’s default “partition” rules provided 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,” noted Rebecca Glenn-Dinwoodie, a Pennsylvania attorney specializing in animal and family law.
Delaware considers dogs personal property, but it is also one of eight states allowing courts to consider companion animals’ best interests when divorces require division of property. However, no state currently addresses what to do about pets when unmarried co-owners separate.
David’s decision to award Tucker to the highest bidder—limited to the estranged couple involved—may seem cold. However, a careful reading of her Nov. 14 opinion reveals how a best-interest standard upheld in other states’ courts influenced the case, even if David ultimately defaulted to partition law, according to Michelle Pardo of Duane Morris LLP.
The judge recognized that the equity court could override a presumption of partition if evidence showed one party couldn’t care for Tucker. Since David found both parties equally capable, “that’s why, I think, the court put the onus on the parties,” Pardo explained.
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 have 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, which decided she was the rightful owner. However, two other courts found the couple shared ownership. Callahan subsequently 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. A neutral attorney was appointed 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 stated.
Best Interests
In Delaware divorces, considering a companion animal’s well-being includes evaluating each party’s ability to provide care, the pet’s attachment to each party, and the time and effort each party spent tending to its needs.
Courts in states with similar laws examine whose name is on veterinarian records or adoption paperwork. They also ask, “Who takes the dog on a walk? Who picks out the horse’s stall? Who gives the diabetic cat their injections? Who performs all these necessary tasks that don’t show up on paperwork?” Glenn-Dinwoodie explained.
While courts have been sympathetic to pet owners in applying “best-interest” standards, they remain cautious about extending the same resources available in child custody cases—such as forensic evaluations, expert witnesses, or guardians ad litem, according to Pardo.
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 that neither a “best-interests” standard nor consideration of Nelson’s and Callahan’s financial portfolios should override 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 that reversed a lower court’s granting ownership to an ex-boyfriend. Similarly, in 2009, the same court found that 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 could not be measured comparably 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 would 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, arguing that the trial court’s finding of partition was too “drastic.”
David and other judges have often added personal commentary in their footnotes. In Peanut’s case, the judge noted that the terrier’s owner “could not find a more avid dog lover than the judge assigned to this case.” However, 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 reflect judges’ discomfort with the statutory limits when a companion animal is involved in a dispute, according to 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.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Kay in Philadelphia at jkay@bloombergindustry.com. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Carmen Castro-Pagán at ccastro-pagan@bloomberglaw.com; Andrew Harris at aharris@bloomberglaw.com
Copyright 2026 Bloomberg.
