Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Co-Ownership of Dogs in Cohousing

[Christine Baker (christinedbaker]

We adopted a dog with another family in our building in January. Both
of our families already have cats and had also had dogs in the past,
but we wanted to share in some of the work of having a dog and have
built-in support for when we travel or are busy.

Basically, we share custody of the pup (Winston). Winston is with us
Tuesday to Saturday and with his other family from Saturday to
Tuesday. There's a lot of switching around when we travel or have
things going on and it's nice to have some built-in people who know
Winston and his habits well.

We were inspired by a friend who is on her third generation of
co-owning dogs with a friend. In her case, they actually have a
contract that lays out rights and responsibilities and have found this
helps them a lot. We've gone with a more informal approach.

I would recommend, however, if you're going to share a pet: make sure
that you have some in-depth conversations about what you'll do if you
disagree about health care decisions, behavioral issues, or paying for
pet-related expenses. Also make sure that there's some kind of plan in
place if one family moves during the lifetime of the pet (especially
if it's far enough away to make shared custody impossible).

Best,
Christine

Christine D. Baker, PhD
Klaxon Communications
Writing, editing, and content strategy: https://klaxoncomms.com/
Research and Teaching: https://christinedbakermes.wordpress.com/