💔 Things to Know About Co-Parenting a Pet Amid Gray Divorce (AARP Article)

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With Gray Divorce on the Rise, Who Gets the Dog?

More people are co-parenting their pets following a breakup.

By Robin L. Flanigan, AARP. Published October 07, 2024.

The stats don’t lie. More than one in three people who divorce in the United States are older than 50, according to research published in the Journals of Gerontology. Combine that with the fact that more than half of older adults report having a pet, and there’s bound to be fighting over who gets custody of an animal in a divorce or breakup.

Here’s what to know about pet co-parenting. 

Joint custody comes with health benefits

“We don’t have children, and neither of us wanted to give him up,” 51-year-old Terra Osterling, a freelance writer in Irondequoit, New York, says of Willy, the one-eyed, 30-pound mutt she shares with ex-husband Mark Osterling.

https://www.aarp.org/home-family/friends-family/info-2024/pet-custody-amid-gray-divorce.html