During my second year with the Crime Victims Legal Network team at Empire Justice Center, I wanted to deepen my understanding of the barriers experienced by domestic violence victims and chose to explore the effect pets have upon victims. Animals enrich our lives and increase our happiness, and I am not alone in that belief. According to a 2021-2022 national pet industry survey, 70% of U.S. households own some type of pet. i A 2021 study of approximately 16,000 pet owners and 1,200 veterinarians across four continents and eight countries recorded 95% of surveyed owners considered their pet a part of their family, 98 % of those owners reported personally experiencing health benefits from having a pet in their lives, and about 33 % of those owners described their pet like a child. ii, iii
Learning about the existence of a pet in the life of a domestic violence victim impacts an attorney’s legal strategy and any safety planning for the client. I sought to understand why pet abuse and domestic violence are linked, and what if any legal tools exist in New York State that can help victims and their pets.
My journey to answer those questions served as the basis for my article entitled What Lawyers Can Do When Pet Abuse and Domestic Violence Intersect, which the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) published on their website on December 1, 2022. My article also appears in the May/June 2023 edition of the NYSBA Journal at pages 46-51. It is my hope that my article will encourage you along the path of developing an empathetic mindset of the role of your client’s pet in their life, to respect the bond between your client and their pet, to understand the role of that bond in the power and control dynamic used by their abuser, iv and to identify the legal tools available in New York State that can aid your client and their pet. When you customize your legal strategy to include the presence of your client’s pet and address any specialized needs arising from that ownership, the quality of your holistic representation improves.
iii https://habri.org/international-hab-survey/ and shareable graphic How do Pet Owners Think About Their Pets https://habri.org/assets/uploads/WhatDoPetOwnersThinkAboutTheirPets-1.jpg [last accessed September 13, 2022].
iv Power & Control Tactics: Using Animal Cruelty as Part of Domestic Violence, Safe Passage, Northampton, MA. Adapted from the Power and Control Wheel developed by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, Duluth, MN. http://www.ncdsv.org/images/SafePassage_PCTacticsUsingAnimalCrueltyAsPartOfDV.pdf