To what extent can you defend a pet?

Question

I understand that the majority of law regarding pets, such as possession/custody, regards them as property. Unlike property, though, they aren't fungible, in that most property can be replaced by an identical item or money of equal value, but that doesn't really apply to a pet. I know that deadly forced, legally, is not deemed reasonable to defend a pet and so wouldn't be an adequate defense for killing someone. Therfore, I am wondering, to what extent can you use force to defend a pet? And do they have more legal rights than the genereric definition of property?

Answer 1

And do they have more legal rights than the generic definition of property?

For purposes of self-defense/defense of others/defense of property, pets do not have more legal rights than the generic definition of property. Force can be used to defend a pet only to the same extent that force can be used to defend property. I have never seen any case law or statutes that make this distinction in the use of force to defend context.

It is arguable that a pet might have higher value than the cost of simply buying a replacement pet for purposes of proportionality analysis regarding the amount of non-deadly force used in defense of property. Thus, even if you can buy a cat for $20, the amount of force that is proportionate to defend a pet cat might be the amount of force that is proportionate to defend property valued at $10,000 rather than the amount of force that is proportionate to defend property valued at $20. I've never seen this reasoning actually applied in a court case, but this kind of distinction has been made in court cases of veterinary malpractice and in cases of involving tort damages when a pet is killed in an accident. It would probably not be improper for a criminal defense attorney to make this argument to a jury in the appropriate case.

There are some other purposes, however, for which threats to pets are treated differently than threats to other property in many legal jurisdictions.

For purposes of the law of extortion, and sometimes for purposes of the law of consent to sexual conduct in the context of criminal sexual assault prosecutions, and sometimes for the purposes of determining whether someone was under duress as a defense to criminal or civil liability, a threat to harm a pet is considered to undermine someone's free will and ability to consent in a way that a threat to harm other property does not.

Answer 2

As you point out, pets are invariably treated as property.

As such, you can defend them in the same manner as you would your own property.

There is a lot of property which in practice is not regarded as fungible - pets are not unique in this regard.

"Reasonable force" is always very fact-specific, but certainly you can use a degree of force to defend property.

And of course you may be able to seize your property in your hands or interpose yourself between the assailant and your property. The issue may then escalate to self-defense, if the assailant attacks you in trying to pass or tries to wrest the property from you.

An escalation to lethal force in defense of small amounts of movable property, however, is something that would tend to be frowned on.

Even when a large amount of sentimental value and emotional investment is at stake, as it may be with a pet, the value of human life (even of wrongdoers) rates very highly.

One way of understanding this is that the law exists to regulate the relationships between people collectively, and whilst the owner may be very attached to a pet, the family, friends, and wider community of a man shot to protect a dog may not accept the proportionality.