Give Me My Pet!

Guest Speaker: Barbara Gislason
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Pet lovers, this show is for you! We know there are many of you out there because some statistics indicate that in the US alone, 2/3 of the population owns pets and spends $40 billion a year on them. Wow!

Have you ever wondered what would happen if two people got into a fight over who gets a pet after a break up?

With the rash of natural disasters we have seen in recent years, have you ever wondered about how animals are reconciled with their owners and what that takes? What if a pet is found to have been abused or neglected by its owner; should the owner still get it back?

With more than 30 years of legal, negotiation, and litigation experience in various areas of practice, including animal law, Barbara Gislason has tackled difficult issues involving pet custody, and owner’s rights in ambiguous situations.

Tune in for some eye opening tips from Barbara on various issues affecting your relationship with your pets.

Audio Blog Highlights

Animal law is not the same as animal rights activism. Animal rights activists tend to have convictions about how they want animals to be treated, and they advocate certain positions, such as vegetarianism.

Animal law is about bringing together all people who care about, and love animals and want to develop laws that are kind and moral, and reflect the good in humans.

Examples of animal law include:

These are just some of the issues at the intersection of law and animal issues. Most of us have dealt with these issues in some form or other, and may not even have recognized it.

Animal Intuition

Numerous stories were reported in August 2011 in Washington DC about all the animals that sounded off early warnings before the earthquake that hit the east coast of the United States;

An 8-week mindfulness meditation study conducted by the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers found that meditation appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. This is the first study to document changes over time in the brain’s grey matter as a result of meditation.

People who are mindful and in the present would have probably had the ability to discern this impending earthquake. Barbara suggests that because animals live so much in the present, this may have been the reason they were able to predict the quake so accurately. Could it be that animals live so in the present that they are able to intuit things like this that the rest of us don’t? Whatever the explanation might be, there’s no doubt that animal intuition is a real phenomenon, of which this is but one example.

An Example of Animal Law At Work – Pet Custody

The loss of a pet can be extremely painful, which is why the issue of pet custody is so important to people. Sometimes pet custody issues arise because both parties are very attached to the pet and they are trying to determine who best they both stay in touch with the animal.

Other times the issue arises because of revenge, where one spouse wants to hurt the other emotionally and uses the pet as a pawn.

Still other times, pet custody becomes an issue in domestic violence where the abuser wants the pet as a way of continuing the control and abuse aimed at the other spouse.

This might be surprising in light of how publicly many celebrities and other people coddle their pets. The good news is that in Barbara’s experience, there is an increasing sensitivity to pet care issues and new laws are slowly being passed that address pets.

Some states have begun to recognize that cruelty to humans in these situations can extend to animals, and passed laws that relate to animals in domestic situations. Minnesota is one such state that has done so, and gets an “A” for this effort.

Pets in Disasters

A big issue in disaster situations is the task of locating animals and getting them back to their owners. Often, it is very difficult for owners to find their pets quickly enough to avoid those pets being permanently placed in foster care and in shelters.

Sometimes in disaster situations, pets are found to have been neglected or abused (e.g. the animals are scarred and show signs of having been used for fighting), and issues arise because the rescuers have no desire to return the animals to their owners.

What You Can Do

Additional Resources

Read more about animal law on Barbara’s web site.

Check out this article in which Barbara Gislason is quoted: Minnesota Divorce and Family Law Blog – Maryland Judge Awards Couple Joint Custody of Lucky The Dog.

The American Red Cross increasingly allows pets to stay with their owners in disaster situation. Get tips on how to plan for your pets in the event of a disaster.

- Read Red Cross white paper.

- Get tips from Red Cross Web Site.

If you are interested in adopting a pet or learning a ton about pets, check out PetFinder.com.

Suggested Reading

Standards for the Care and Disposition of Disaster Animals Model Act Report

Book: Congo (also a movie)
Author: Michael Crichton
Description: A fun fictional read about a gorilla named Amy, who is returned to her homeland in the Congo after being taught how to “talk” through breakthrough technological advancements. The plot is complex and interesting, and includes a greedy prospector after King Solomon’s diamonds, a corporation in search of sustainable breakthrough technology, a volatile war-torn nation, mutant murderous gorillas, and much much more. Listen to the audio blog to hear what Barbara says about the prophetic nature of Michael Crichton’s work.

Book: Descartes’ Error (Recommended by Barbara Gislason)
Author: Antonio R. Damasio
Description: In this non-fiction work, Damasio, a Neurologist, presents his “somatic marker hypothesis”, suggesting that emotions guide or bias behavior and decision-making, and that rationality requires emotional input. Against this backdrop, Damasio argues that the error that French philosopher, René Descartes, made lay in attempting to separate mind and body, rationality and emotion.

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