How has the court treated a dispute between a husband and wife over the ownership of a dog?

This case was presented as a dispute about pet ownership, but it can equally be seen as a dispute about the fair division of assets among unmarried partners. That is a live and pressing concern for the courts: see e.g. Dwyer v. Bussey, 2017 NLCA 68.

The appeal judge approached the problem of fair distribution by taking a flexible approach to the legal ownership of particular assets within cohabiting relationships. The currently accepted approach is quite different. The legal ownership of individual assets is determined by the traditional narrow legal rules: the couch I bought is mine, and the money in your chequing account is yours. But afterwards the courts look broadly at the whole picture through the lens of unjust enrichment. If one party is capturing an undue share of assets, the court orders compensation; if one party is walking away with individual assets that ought to be jointly owned, the court orders a constructive trust. See generally Kerr v. Baranow, 2011 SCC 10, [2011] 1 S.C.R. 269.