Why A Canadian Judge’s Ruling About Dogs Is A Statement About Non-traditional Families

In an unusual Canadian divorce case, a Sasketoon judge ruled in late December that a couple’s dog custody dispute was a “wasteful” and “demeaning” use of court time.

I could write for hours critiquing this judge’s insensitive 15-page decision. But let’s just take a handful of quotes from the piece to explain why his decision demonstrates violent bigotry against non-traditional families[CW: speciesism, heterosexism, classism, ableism]:

1. “In Canada, we tend not to purchase our children from breeders.”
   Actually, humans pay people for sperm, embryos, and uteruses all the time. Just because we call them fertility clinics and wrap up these costs into the services they provide doesn’t mean they do not serve the same purpose as breeders. And adoption costs a lot of money too. So a variety of circumstances occur in which we functionally purchase human children.
   
2. “We tend not to breed our children with other humans to ensure good bloodlines, nor do we charge for such services.”
   We tend to do exactly that. It’s called the aristocracy. Also, per above, fertility clinic much???
3. “When our children are seriously ill, we generally do not engage in an economic cost/benefit analysis to see whether the children are to receive medical treatment, receive nothing or even have their lives ended to prevent suffering.”
   Governments and corporations undertake a cost/benefit analysis every time they make legal changes pertaining to healthcare.
4. “When our children act improperly, even seriously and violently so, we generally do not muzzle them or even put them to death for repeated transgressions.”
   Perhaps Canadians don’t physically place a muzzle on children, but child protection statistics contain a laundry list of abuses we subject children to in the name of discipline up to and including execution. Also muzzling humans as a form of torture and abuse is not without precedent in western society.
5. “He said that should be obvious to all based on a bit of logical, dispassionate thought.”
   The notion that the United States’ neighbors to the north represent an inherently progressive population is becoming increasingly overblown. Why do ‘pale, stale males’ still imagine that their thoughts to be the product of logical, dispassionate discourse when they’re only a single limited perspective to consider?
6. “Danyliuk said given dogs are property and not family, it would be absurd for him to make a ruling about visitation rights.”
   Cis white men have attempted to define what constitutes my family for far too long. Radical concepts of family have existed for centuries outside of what ‘the law’ narrowly calls a family. And this is the crux of why his circular logic presents an act of violence.

Mothers nursing children of different species is often dismissed as a biological imperative rather than an act of parenting. Only humans get the benefit of the doubt, and even then not all of us.

How many black families have been cobbled together with non-blood relatives? The lifelong friends we claim as cousins because we were raised together? The women we exalt as Auntie because they were always there to feed and clothe us absent a biological parent or guardian (or in collaboration with one because intergenerational poverty makes us responsible for one another) ?

How many queer families have adopted one another because we were rejected by bigoted parents and guardians? How many queer couples have been denied the right to execute their partner’s affairs? How many people are routinely denied medical care because they don’t meet the strict definition of a dependent in the healthcare industrial complex? Be they best friend, grandmother, or nephew. Are these intimate relationships invalid because the state deems them unworthy of protection?

One could argue that the common denominator in all these circumstances is our humanity. But interspecies relationships are not uncommon, nor are they limited to humans. And by every meaningful metric, other species are persons. Judge Danyliuk would be wise to consider this evidence. And we would be wise to take note of how the establishment historically acted to diminish our individuality through the rule of law.

And for what it’s worth, none of the judge’s explanations for why animal companions should not be considered family are even valid reasons why we should be doing any of those things anyway, to humans or anyone else.

The bottom line is that we should be expanding our understanding of family, not restricting it.