For as long as most of us have been alive, the law has had a blunt answer to the question of who keeps the dog when a marriage ends: whoever technically owns it. In the eyes of a courtroom, the family pet has sat on the same shelf as the couch, the blender, and the flat-screen, something to be assigned to one side of the ledger and divided. Pennsylvania just took a formal step toward changing that.
In late September 2025, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed House Bill 97, a measure that would reclassify companion animals as “living beings” and “cherished family members” rather than ordinary personal property in a divorce. It cleared the chamber 121 to 82 and moved on to the state Senate.
What the bill would actually do
If it becomes law, HB 97 adds a distinct category for companion animals to Pennsylvania’s Domestic Relations statute. That’s the technical part. The practical part is that judges would be required to weigh a pet’s welfare when deciding where it lands, instead of simply awarding it to whoever holds the receipt.
The bill lays out concrete factors for a court to consider, including whether the animal came into the household before or during the marriage, who meets its day-to-day needs, which spouse can realistically afford its care, who has historically handled its veterinary and social needs, and who has kept up with the paperwork like licensing. In other words, the same kinds of questions a court already asks about a child’s stability, scaled to the reality of a pet.
Service animals get their own carve-out. Under the bill, a service animal would stay with the person who depends on it, or with whichever parent is raising a minor child who relies on that animal. And couples could sign a separate, enforceable agreement spelling out a pet’s care ahead of time.
The bill’s sponsor, Representative Anita Kulik, practiced law before entering the legislature, and has said her years watching splitting couples fight bitterly over a beloved animal pushed her to write it. A recurring problem she has pointed to is a pet being used as leverage, held over one spouse to gain ground in negotiations over everything else.
Where it stands now
Passing the House is a milestone, not a finish line. After the September vote, HB 97 was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it awaits action before it could reach the governor’s desk. If it does eventually pass and get signed, the law would kick in 60 days after signing. Until then, Pennsylvania courts continue to treat pets as property.
Pennsylvania wouldn’t be first
The shift HB 97 represents is part of a slow national trend, not a one-off. A handful of states already instruct judges to consider a pet’s well-being in a divorce rather than treating it as a possession, beginning with Alaska in 2017 and followed by states including Illinois, California, and New York. Courts elsewhere have inched in the same direction case by case: in mid-2025, a New York City judge recognized that pets can be treated as family in the context of emotional-distress claims.
None of this means the law has caught up everywhere. In most of the country, an animal still carries roughly the legal weight of a lamp. But the direction is unmistakable, and it tracks how people already live. Couples increasingly treat co-parenting a dog or cat with the seriousness they’d bring to raising a kid, and “pet-nups,” prenuptial-style agreements that spell out who gets the animal, have moved from novelty to something couples genuinely sit down and negotiate.
For anyone in Pennsylvania navigating a split with a pet in the mix, HB 97 isn’t law yet, and it may change on its way through the Senate. But the vote is a signal that the courtroom is starting to see what pet parents have always known: the animal on the other side of the table isn’t property. It’s family.
