To Love, Honor and Belly-Scratch

Theories abound. Raoul Felder, a celebrity divorce lawyer from New York, attributes the rising incidence of pet custody cases to "an alienated society, especially in the big cities, where you don't know the guy across the hall." Bob Vetere of the American Pet Products Manufacturers Assn. points to "lifestyles becoming more frantic, and the world becoming more of a scary place." In a divorce, the pet is usually the one source of calm, he says. "You can yell at a dog all day long, but as soon as you pick up a tennis ball, he's your best friend. Yell at your spouse all day long and a tennis ball ain't going to do it."

Certainly, a pet's value is only heightened during a divorce, a time when warring spouses reach out to their animals for unconditional loyalty as existing bonds are being torn asunder in the courts. And this is the irony--that the case for animals being recognized as members of the family should be raised in the context of families breaking up.

Yet perhaps it's fitting that our relationships with animals should gain in force as our human relationships degrade. Perhaps it is in the field of human relationships that animals have the most to teach us. Besides innocence, simplicity and the lust for survival, a dog can also teach us fidelity, perseverance and, as writer Robert Benchley once remarked, "to turn around three times before lying down--very important traits in times like these."