The Rise of Pet Custody in Mediation: What Mediators Need to Know

Family mediators have always dealt with contested property. Furniture, vehicles, bank accounts, the house: the financial and practical aftermath of a separation involves a long list of assets that two people once shared and now need to divide. Pets have always appeared on that list, but they have historically been treated as a minor item: resolved quickly, in passing, as part of a broader property settlement.

That is changing. Pet custody disputes are now a significant and growing part of family mediation work, and they require a different kind of engagement from mediators than a standard property dispute.

What makes pet cases distinctive

A pet is legally treated as property in most jurisdictions. In practice, it is treated as a family member. The gap between those two realities is the source of most of the difficulty in mediation.

When two people dispute ownership of a car, the conversation is about financial value. When two people dispute the arrangement for a shared pet, the conversation is about who has been the primary carer, what the animal's welfare requires, what the children's relationship with the animal looks like, and what each party's living situation allows. These are questions that require a different kind of inquiry from a mediator than a question about who gets the dining table.

The emotional stakes are also different. Clients in pet custody mediation are often dealing with a loss that feels disproportionate to the legal status of the animal. They know the pet is legally property. They do not experience it that way. The gap between the legal framework and the emotional reality is something mediators need to hold carefully.

What the legal context now requires

The Fi v Do ruling in December 2024 placed significant weight on ongoing caregiving in determining who should retain a dog after a relationship ended. That reasoning is influencing the questions that mediators are being asked to help clients work through, and the kind of evidence that clients are bringing to the table.

Clients who have documented their caregiving, through a timestamped log or a written pet parenting agreement, arrive at mediation with a factual basis for their position that can be examined and discussed. Clients who have not documented anything arrive with competing assertions that are much harder to evaluate.

In Australia, the 2024 Family Law Amendment formally requires courts to consider animal welfare and the history of care. For mediators working with Australian clients, or with clients from jurisdictions where similar reforms are underway, familiarity with what good documentation looks like is increasingly useful professional knowledge.

The mediation conversation

The most productive pet custody mediations tend to have a few things in common. There is some factual basis for discussion, either a written arrangement that both parties are familiar with, or a care history that has been documented to some degree. There is a shared understanding that the pet's welfare is a legitimate consideration, not just a sentimental attachment. And there is a willingness on both sides to reach a practical outcome rather than an adversarial one.

Mediators can encourage all three of these conditions before the formal process begins. Directing both parties toward documentation tools at the earliest opportunity, before positions harden, creates a factual basis for the conversation that is much easier to work with than competing recollections.

A pet parenting agreement created before mediation formally begins gives both parties a reference point. Even if the agreement was created informally, even if it was created before the separation, it reflects what was intended at a point when both parties were still engaged with each other. That starting point is more useful than starting from scratch.

A caregiver log, even a short one started in the weeks before mediation, begins to establish a pattern of involvement. Ideally it would span months rather than weeks, but even a limited record is more useful than nothing.

The outcomes that documentation supports

Pet custody cases that resolve through mediation rather than litigation are better for both parties. They are faster, cheaper and less adversarial. They are also more likely to produce arrangements that both parties can live with, because the parties have shaped the outcome themselves rather than having it imposed on them by a court.

Arrangements that are documented, reviewed and maintained over time are more durable than informal ones. A living agreement that is updated as circumstances change is less likely to become a source of renewed conflict than one that was agreed once and never revisited.

For mediators, the practical implication is straightforward: knowing which documentation tools exist, being able to direct clients toward them at the right moment, and understanding what well-maintained documentation demonstrates are all part of working effectively with pet custody cases.

The professional case for building this expertise

Pet custody is not going away as a feature of family mediation work. The legal landscape is shifting, the emotional weight clients place on these cases is real, and the volume of cases is increasing across multiple jurisdictions.

Mediators who develop fluency in this area, who understand the evidential framework, who know what good documentation looks like and who can help clients think clearly about the animal's welfare as a genuine consideration in the arrangement, are better placed than those treating pet custody as a minor and inconvenient subset of property disputes.

The clients who care most about these cases remember the mediators who handled them well. That is not an insignificant consideration for a practice looking to build a strong reputation in a field that is still defining its standards.

Pawsettle is a documentation and planning platform, not a legal service or mediation provider. This article is for informational purposes only. Pawsettle Enterprise provides white-label documentation tools for mediation services and family law professionals. Find out more about Pawsettle Enterprise.