Every Dog Owner Has His Day
Custody cases are always painful for the contestants, for the judge, who is called upon to make Solomonic decisions, for the objects of the contests, and for disinterested observers, who usually think they could have achieved a better solution.
I told here recently the case of the Bakersfield collie, Lady/Missy, for whose custody her two putative owners went to court. One, Gary Jones, had raised her from a pup, as Lady. When Lady was 4, she strayed. The next day she was bailed out of the pound by Mrs. Melanie Ansolabehere, who named her Missy. Three years later Missy strayed, and, by an improbable coincidence, Jones’ mother saw her in the street. A picture in the Bakersfield Californian of the dog’s heartwarming reunion with her original owner caught Mrs. Ansolabehere’s eye. She sued, and Municipal Judge Jack E. Lund granted temporary joint custody, each owner to have the dog half of each month.
As both owners said, this solution was not likely to produce a happy dog.
Wilfred J. Henley of Hollywood points out practically that if Jones had obtained a license for the dog and hung an identification tag on her collar, the whole distressing mix-up would have been avoided, conceding that doesn’t help with the current problem.
Merle Keary, a Northridge attorney, argues that Judge Lund was remiss in failing to refer the two custodians and the dog to a dog psychiatrist. “After a five-minute interview (the psychiatrist) could tell the judge the background of the parties, the problems each has created in the personality of Lady/Missy, Lady/Missy’s preference, and which abode would be most conducive to Lady/Missy’s further development and happiness.”
Keary has a point, but I doubt that any psychiatrist, dog or human, could sufficiently probe the psyches of the three principals in only five minutes. He would more likely require several sessions on the couch with each before resolving their predicament.
Mary Hall, fifth-grade teacher at Montemalaga School in Palos Verdes Estates, sends me the opinions of 30 of her pupils, noting that they had recently made a field trip to a court where they heard a child custody case and later visited the judge in his chambers. (Children are perhaps fascinated by such lawsuits, being potential victims of them.)
Pupil Ingrid Schneider proposes a practical solution: “Jones and Melanie should move in next to each other and knock out the fence between their back yards and Lady/Missy could run back and forth to both of them.”
Evan Watkins, like several other pupils, suggests a solution that sounds drastic but feasible. “Mrs. Melanie should get a divorce and marry Gary Jones. Then they could both have the dog.”
Of course that has its sticky side. We know that Mrs. Ansolabehere already has a husband, and if she divorces him to move in with Jones and Lady, how can we be sure that he won’t sue her and Jones for custody of Missy, which, we presume, he has also grown to love.
Michael Mercier and several other pupils suggest what seems a perfectly natural, if deferred, solution: “I think that Lady/Missy should have puppies with another dog. That way you can divide the puppies between Gary Jones and Mrs. Melanie.”
That would probably be all right with Jones, Mrs. Ansolabehere and the judge, but, alas, how can we know whether it would be all right with Lady/Missy? Motherhood should be an option, not a legal obligation, even in a dog.
Some pupils thought Jones should have the dog because he had raised it from a pup and had had it longer; others thought each should add up the receipts of what he or she had spent on the dog, and the one who had spent the most should have her. But that seems a strictly monetary solution that does not consider the dog’s preference.
Perhaps the most dramatic denouement would be an alternate solution proposed by Michael Mercier (and others): “The two owners should stand about 50 yards apart and they should put Missie in the middle. Whichever owner Missie goes to she goes to him or her permanently.”
For that demonstration Judge Lund could move his court to the middle of the Bakersfield High School football field. It ought to draw a sizable crowd.
I hope the judge will accept these suggestions as briefs from friends of the court.
