Who Keeps the Pet After Separation in Ontario?

Pets Are Generally Treated as Property

Unlike parenting arrangements for children, which are generally guided by the best interests of the child, Ontario law generally treats pets as property, not as subjects of a custody-style legal test. This means a dispute over a pet is generally approached more like a dispute over who keeps a specific piece of furniture or a vehicle, rather than a parenting arrangement, even though that framework often feels like a poor fit for how people actually experience their relationship with a pet.

What's Generally Looked At

Where a pet dispute does end up before a court, factors that can generally be relevant include who purchased or adopted the pet, whose name is on any registration or veterinary records, who has generally been the primary caregiver, and sometimes practical considerations like which household is realistically better suited to the pet's needs. This is generally a more informal, practically-minded inquiry than the formal best-interests test used for children, reflecting the pet's legal status as property.

Why Many Couples Work This Out Directly

Because formal litigation over a pet can be disproportionate to the pet's legal value as property, many separating couples generally find it more practical to work out an arrangement directly — sometimes including informal shared-time arrangements that don't map onto typical property division categories, even though they aren't formally required by the property-division framework itself.

Putting an Arrangement in Writing

Whatever is agreed, documenting it in a separation agreement — even briefly — tends to reduce the chance of a later dispute, particularly where an informal shared-time arrangement is involved, since that kind of arrangement generally isn't something a court would order on its own without the parties' agreement.

Frequently Asked Questions