What general legal rules apply to dogs and cats as household pets?
Under the common law, dogs and cats are considered “personal property” and for the most part the legal rules that apply to personal properties – from handbags to hamburgers – apply pretty comfortably to them as well. However, because dogs and cats are living creatures, some rules don’t apply well at all. That’s because dogs and cats, like all animals, do at least three weird things that non-living properties don’t: they move themselves from place to place; they make independent decisions about what they want to do; and (given time and the friendly assistance of another like them) they can replicate themselves. While there are plenty of other odd things about dogs and cats (please insert your favorite personal anecdote here), those particular three make a mess of the law’s attempts to treat either exactly like handbags or hamburgers. For instance, with respect to property ownership, the law normally looks at who has “custody and control” of a piece of property – yet cats especially (as
