They may be Fluffy and Woofy to you, but to a divorce court it’s pet 1 and pet 2, and those pets are considered property, not part of the family. If the spouses can’t settle the matter, the court will usually assign custody to whichever spouse bought it, fed it, or brought it into the relationship.

In one case in San Diego, when Stanley and Linda Perkins fought for two years over Gigi, a mix of pointer and greyhound, the judge awarded custody to the wife after she showed a video, “A Day in the Life of Gigi.” The video showed her relationship to Gigi, who slept under her chair at work, and played fetch on the beach.

Sometimes you wish people would take as good care of their children.

Last year the courts in Wisconsin began following a new Solomonic rule on animal custody. The couple decides who gets the pet, or the judge decides custody, and if that doesn’t work, the animal goes to the local Humane Society.

Husband and wife are invited to apply for ownership of the pet there.

But that’s all about what’s best for the humans. What about what’s best for the pets?

Animal rights is one of the fastest growing areas of law. And many of those laws come into play in divorce. For one thing, there is a close correlation between spousal abuse and pet abuse. Anger about the marriage is deflected onto the pet who is kicked, abandoned, kidnapped, or even killed.

That’s why, a year ago, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law SB 353, which amended the California family code to grant protective orders to pets. The new law assigns the care of an animal to one party, and restrains the other party from “taking, transferring, encumbering, concealing, molesting, attacking, striking, threatening, harming, or otherwise disposing of the animal.”

In the second installment, we’ll talk about the following issues:

• Does divorce affect a dog or cat emotionally?
• Is it best to keep two pets together, or to divide them?
• Should the pet stay with the house or go with the children?
• What about joint custody?
• What if the pet is old and incontinent?

Our social networking site has a discussion board where you can share your stories about pets and divorce.