Pet Custody California: A High-Asset Divorce Guide

A show horse with a competition record, a syndicated stallion, or a dog carrying breeding rights is an asset with an appraisable value and a revenue stream. California pet custody law reaches some of those animals and, for reasons most people never anticipate, does not reach the most valuable ones at all. Borna Houman Law handles pet ownership disputes as part of high-asset divorce work throughout Los Angeles County, and the analysis starts with how the animal is characterized rather than with who provided the daily care.

Key Takeaway: California Family Code section 2605, effective January 1, 2019, lets a divorce court assign sole or joint ownership of a pet animal while taking into consideration the care of that animal, overriding the equal division rule in section 2550. The statute reaches only animals that are community property. A pet acquired before marriage or received by gift or inheritance is separate property under section 770 and falls outside section 2605 entirely.

Does California have a pet custody law?

California has a pet ownership statute, which is a different thing. Family Code section 2605 was added by Assembly Bill 2274, Statutes 2018, chapter 429, and took effect January 1, 2019.

Before that, a pet was ordinary personal property. Courts valued the animal and divided the community estate equally under Family Code section 2550, with no mechanism to consider who fed it, who took it to the veterinarian, or where it would be better off. Section 2605 changed the mechanism, not the underlying character of the asset.

What does Family Code section 2605 actually authorize?

Two distinct things, and conflating them costs clients leverage.

Subdivision (a) lets the court, on a party’s request and before any final determination of ownership, order a party to care for the pet animal. The statute then limits its own effect: such an order “shall not have any impact on the court’s final determination of ownership.”

Subdivision (b) is the operative provision. Notwithstanding any other law, including section 2550, the court may assign sole or joint ownership of a pet animal taking into consideration the care of the animal. That phrase, “notwithstanding any other law, including Section 2550,” is the carve-out from equal division.

Subdivision (c)(1) defines care as the prevention of acts of harm or cruelty as described in Penal Code section 597, plus the provision of food, water, veterinary care, and safe and protected shelter.

Does the court apply a best interest standard to a pet?

No, and content asserting otherwise is wrong. Section 2605 uses the word ownership throughout. It never says custody, and it never adopts a best interest of the animal standard.

The distinction has practical consequences. Best interest analysis in child custody under Family Code section 3011 supports ongoing jurisdiction, modification, and enforcement. A section 2605 ownership assignment is a property division. Once it is final, there is no continuing jurisdiction to revisit it because circumstances changed, and there is no such thing as pet support.

Clients who expect a visitation schedule for a dog are expecting something the statute does not provide. Any shared arrangement has to be negotiated into the judgment as a contract term.

Which pets does section 2605 cover?

This is the provision that matters most in a high-asset case and the one competing articles omit. Subdivision (c)(2) defines “pet animal” as any animal that is community property and kept as a household pet.

Both elements are required. The animal must be community property, and it must be kept as a household pet. An animal that fails either test is outside the statute, and the court has no authority to assign joint ownership of it or to weigh care in dividing it.

Working animals, breeding stock housed at a facility rather than in the home, and animals held as investments are all candidates for falling outside the definition. So is any animal that is separate property.

Is a pet you owned before marriage separate property?

Yes. Family Code section 770 defines separate property to include all property owned before marriage and all property acquired after marriage by gift, bequest, devise, or descent. Family Code section 760 makes property acquired during marriage while domiciled in California community property.

Because section 2605 reaches only community property animals, a dog acquired before the marriage stays with its owner regardless of who provided the care during the marriage. The same is true of an animal received as a gift or inherited.

In our experience representing owners of valuable animals, characterization is worth more than any evidence about care. A spouse who spent seven years managing a horse’s training and campaign schedule has no claim under section 2605 if the horse was purchased before the wedding. Establishing that fact through purchase records, registration papers, and transfer documents comes before any argument about who did the work. Our guide to separate property tracing in California covers how that proof is assembled.

What if the animal was bought during the marriage with separate funds?

Then you are in a tracing case, and the presumption starts against you. Property acquired during marriage is presumed community under Family Code section 760. The spouse claiming separate character carries the burden of proving it.

Registration papers in one spouse’s name do not resolve this. Breed registry records show who registered the animal, not what funds bought it, and a registry listing does not overcome the community property presumption for an animal acquired during the marriage.

What does resolve it is tracing the purchase money. If the animal was bought with an inheritance held in a segregated account, direct tracing to that deposit establishes separate character. If the purchase came out of an account mixing inherited funds with salary earned during marriage, the analysis becomes considerably harder, and the family expense presumption works against the tracing spouse. Section 770(a)(3) also treats the rents, issues, and profits of separate property as separate, which matters when an animal was purchased with proceeds from selling a separate property animal.

Owners of valuable livestock should buy from a dedicated account and keep the purchase records, because that documentation is what a tracing argument runs on years later.

Does the date of separation affect who owns the animal?

It sets the boundary. Family Code section 70 defines the date of separation as the date of a complete and final break in the marital relationship, shown by one spouse’s expressed intent to end the marriage and conduct consistent with that intent.

An animal purchased after that date with post-separation earnings is separate property, because post-separation earnings are separate. A horse acquired three months after separation is not divisible, and section 2605 has nothing to say about it.

Two wrinkles come up with breeding operations. First, offspring born after separation to a community property mare generally follow the character of the dam, since issues and profits track the underlying asset. Second, community funds spent after separation to board, train, and insure a separate property animal can support a reimbursement claim by the community. Both turn on when separation actually occurred, which is litigated more often than clients expect. Our guide to the date of separation in California divorce covers how courts fix that date.

How are high-value animals valued in a California divorce?

Not the way a family pet is valued. A companion animal has negligible market value, which is why section 2605 exists. An animal with a pedigree, a competition record, or breeding potential is valued like any other income-producing asset.

Retaining a generalist personal property appraiser for a competition animal produces a number that bears no relationship to what the animal would bring at sale. The appraiser needs credentials in the specific market.

Who owns the breeding and genetic rights?

Treat the animal and its genetic material as two separate assets, because they can be divided independently and frequently should be.

Frozen semen, embryos, and stored DNA samples are personal property held at a facility, and they can be allocated without moving the animal. Future breeding rights can be contracted for in the judgment: one spouse takes the animal and the other retains a defined number of breedings per year, or a percentage of stud fees for a fixed term.

Splitting the asset this way often resolves a dispute that looks intractable when framed as a single indivisible animal. It also avoids forcing a sale, which is what a court will otherwise do with a separate property asset it cannot assign under section 2605.

Can you get temporary possession of a pet during the divorce?

You can get a care order under section 2605(a), and you should understand its limits before you spend money on it.

The statute expressly provides that a subdivision (a) order has no impact on the final determination of ownership. A client who obtains temporary care has secured the animal’s welfare during the case and gained no position for trial, because the Legislature said the order does not count toward final ownership.

Can a restraining order give you exclusive possession of an animal?

Yes, and this route carries weight that a section 2605(a) care order does not. Family Code section 6320(b) permits a court, on a showing of good cause, to include in a protective order a grant of exclusive care, possession, or control of an animal to the petitioner.

The court may also order the restrained party to stay away from the animal and forbid taking, transferring, encumbering, concealing, molesting, attacking, striking, threatening, harming, or disposing of it. The animal may be one owned, possessed, leased, kept, or held by either party or by a minor child in either household.

Nothing in section 6320 disclaims its effect on later proceedings the way section 2605(a) does. Where domestic violence is genuinely present, this is the stronger interim tool. It should never be pursued as a tactic where the underlying facts do not support it, and our guide to domestic violence and custody in California addresses how those findings carry through a case.

Can a prenuptial agreement or settlement agreement control the pet?

Yes, and for anyone acquiring a valuable animal this is the efficient answer. A premarital or postnuptial agreement can characterize the animal as separate property, allocate breeding rights, and set who bears the cost of care.

In a settlement, the judgment can do things the court cannot order on its own: a shared possession schedule, a right of first refusal if the holder decides to sell, an obligation to maintain mortality insurance, and a defined allocation of breeding income. Section 2605 gives the court a binary ownership choice. A negotiated agreement is not limited that way. Our guide to the California marital settlement agreement covers how those terms are drafted to survive.

What happens to the animal if an owner dies?

Probate Code section 15212 validates a trust for the care of an animal alive during the settlor’s lifetime. The trust terminates when no animal covered by it remains alive, unless the instrument provides otherwise.

It is enforceable by a person named in the instrument, by a person appointed by the court, and any person interested in the animal’s welfare or an animal care nonprofit may petition regarding it.

For an animal with a long life expectancy and high maintenance costs, funding a section 15212 trust in the settlement is more durable than a promise in the judgment. A horse can outlive the enforceability of most contractual care obligations, and a funded trust with a named enforcer does not depend on either former spouse continuing to cooperate.

How common are pet disputes in divorce?

The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers surveyed its members in 2014 and reported that 27 percent had seen an increase in couples fighting over pet custody over the prior five years. Dogs accounted for 88 percent of disputed animals and cats 5 percent. Twenty-two percent of respondents said courts were more frequently allowing pet custody cases, and 20 percent said courts were increasingly treating pets as an asset.

The underlying ownership numbers keep rising. The American Pet Products Association reported that 53 percent of United States households own a dog, roughly 71 million households, and that about 95 million households own a pet. United States pet industry expenditures reached $158 billion in 2025, up 3.7 percent, with $165 billion projected for 2026.

Those figures explain why the disputes reach court. They do not change the statutory analysis, which still begins with characterization.

Frequently asked questions about pet custody in California

Who gets the dog in a California divorce?

If the dog is community property, the court may assign sole or joint ownership under Family Code section 2605, taking care of the animal into consideration. If the dog is separate property under section 770, it stays with the owner and section 2605 does not apply.

Is a pet considered property in a California divorce?

Yes. Section 2605 did not change the classification of animals as property. It gave courts authority to consider care when assigning ownership, which is an exception to the equal division rule in section 2550.

Can you get joint custody of a dog in California?

The court can assign joint ownership under section 2605(b), but there is no custody schedule and no enforcement mechanism comparable to child custody. Any shared possession arrangement should be written into the judgment as a contract term.

Does the court consider the pet’s best interest?

No. Section 2605 authorizes the court to consider the care of the animal, defined in subdivision (c)(1) as preventing harm or cruelty under Penal Code section 597 and providing food, water, veterinary care, and shelter. It is not a best interest standard.

What if I owned the pet before we married?

The animal is separate property under Family Code section 770 and falls outside section 2605, because subdivision (c)(2) limits the statute to animals that are community property. Care performed by the other spouse during the marriage does not change that.

Can I get a restraining order to protect my pet in California?

Yes. Family Code section 6320(b) allows a court to grant exclusive care, possession, or control of an animal in a protective order on a showing of good cause, and to order the restrained party to stay away from it.

What happens to a valuable breeding animal in a divorce?

Characterize it first. If it is separate property, it is not divisible. If it is community property but not kept as a household pet, section 2605 may not reach it, and it is divided as an ordinary community asset with a qualified appraisal covering the animal and its breeding rights separately.

Speak with a California high-asset divorce attorney

Disputes over animals settle faster when the characterization work is done early and the valuation comes from someone credentialed in the right market. Purchase records, registration and transfer papers, breeding contracts, and facility invoices determine the outcome, and they are easier to assemble before positions harden.

Borna Houman Law represents executives, founders, physicians, and other high-net-worth clients in complex California divorces. Call (888) 42-BORNA for a confidential consultation, or review our high-net-worth divorce practice in Los Angeles and our guide to what makes high-asset divorce different.

The text of Family Code section 2605 is available through California Legislative Information, and self-help material on dissolution procedure is published by the California Courts.

This article is general information about California law and is not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts. Consult an attorney about your specific situation.