Family court evaluators often investigate allegations of domestic violence, child abuse, coercive control, and post-separation abuse. In that work, pets are easy to overlook as collateral or as a simple dispute over property. In some families, however, threats to harm a pet, refusal to return the animal, withholding veterinary care, provoking the animal, or using a child’s bond with the pet to intimidate the other parent are not peripheral details. They may provide important evidence of coercive control, child trauma exposure, post-separation abuse, and parenting-capacity concerns.

Coercive Control through Matters Involving Pets

Coercive control involves a pattern of domination in which one partner uses intimidation, degradation, threats, surveillance, or exploitation of vulnerabilities to control their partner and children in the home Perpetrators often weaponize pets to punish a partner for leaving, silence disclosure, force contact after separation, or frighten partners and children into compliance. Research links intimate partner violence and family violence with violence toward companion animals (DeGue & DiLillo, 2009; Jegatheesan et al., 2020; Butler & MacDonald, 2024). For evaluators, the question is not simply whether someone harmed a pet. The more relevant question is whether a parent used the pet as part of a broader pattern of coercive control, child abuse, or post-separation abuse. (Post-separation abuse is coercive control in the post-separation period (Fontes & Nee, 2025).

Perpetrators may threaten to kill, abandon, keep, or “get rid of” an animal if the other parent leaves, seeks help, or discloses abuse. They may withhold veterinary care, refuse to return a pet after separation, create crises involving the animal during parenting exchanges, or use the pet to force communication. In some cases, they may injure the animal in the child’s presence or use the child’s attachment to the pet as leverage. These behaviors are not random or sincere disputes over a beloved animal; they may form part of a broader pattern of coercive control or abuse.

Treatment of Pets Reflects on Parenting

This matters because, for many children, a pet is not simply property. A family pet may be a source of comfort, predictability, and emotional safety, especially in a home marked by fear or instability. Emerging research suggests that children exposed to domestic violence experience companion animals as important sources of comfort, connection, and emotional safety (Callaghan et al., 2025). When a parent threatens, harms, neglects, or weaponizes an animal, the child may experience grief and fear for the pet, as well as pressure to comply, remain silent, or manage the abusive parent’s behavior to keep the animal safe. In that way, pet-related abuse may function as both a marker of coercive control and, in some cases, a form of psychological harm to the child.

Pet-related abuse also sheds light on parenting capacity. A parent who threatens or harms a child’s pet in order to frighten, punish, or control the child is demonstrating significant deficits in empathy, judgment, and child-centered parenting. From an assessment standpoint, the significance of pet-related abuse extends beyond the animal’s welfare. It reveals a parent’s willingness to use fear, attachment, and dependency as tools of control. The parent is deliberately subjecting a child to terrorizing behavior. This reflects a troubling disregard for the child’s emotional safety.

Examples

Atypical example may involve a parent who has shown little care for the family cat, failing to feed the animal, change the litter box, or obtain veterinary care. Upon separation this parent suddenly insists on “keeping” the cat. Some survivors remain in the home or delay leaving because they fear what will happen to the pet if they leave it  behind. Evaluators should not dismiss that fear as irrational or incidental. Concern for a pet’s safety may be one of the factors that keeps a survivor and child in an unsafe environment and may illuminate the perpetrator’s use of the animal as a tool of coercive control.

Evaluators should also consider whether an allegedly “aggressive” pet was provoked and whether the resulting behavior was later used in litigation against the other parent. In one case, a parent reportedly kicked and strangled an elderly dog until the animal bit in defense, then brought photographs of the bite injuries to court to portray the dog as dangerous and the household as unsafe. Without context, the animal’s defensive response could be misread as evidence supporting that parent’s claims. In context, however, the incident may instead reflect intimidation, animal abuse, and an effort to manipulate the court record.

When evaluators encounter allegations involving a pet bite, animal injury, or sudden claims that a pet is unsafe, those allegations should prompt further inquiry rather than immediate acceptance. What happened immediately before the incident? Was the animal frightened, cornered, injured, or used to intimidate others? Were children present? Was the event later used to discredit the other parent or support unrelated legal claims? These are assessment questions, not side issues.

Perpetrators may threaten to kill, abandon, or “get rid of” an animal if the other parent leaves, seeks help, or discloses abuse. They may withhold veterinary care, refuse to return a pet after separation, create crises involving the animal during parenting exchanges, or use the pet to force communication. In some cases, they may injure the animal in the child’s presence or use the child’s attachment to the pet as leverage. These behaviors are not eccentric disputes over a beloved animal; they may form part of a broader pattern of coercive control or abuse.

Questions to Ask

When allegations involve domestic violence, child abuse, coercive control, or post-separation abuse, evaluators should ask directly about pets. Relevant questions may include:

• Who took primary responsibility for the pets’ welfare during the relationship?
• Were pets ever threatened, harmed, neglected, withheld, or used to intimidate either parent or the child?
• Did the child witness frightening, cruel, or retaliatory behavior toward the animal?
• Does the child express fear, grief, anxiety, hypervigilance, or sleep disturbance related to the pet’s safety?
• Did concerns about the pet affect the survivor’s ability to leave, seek help, disclose abuse, or comply with court processes?
• Has either parent used the pet to force contact, create conflict at exchanges, or maintain control after separation?
• If a pet was described as aggressive or unsafe, what occurred immediately beforehand, and is there evidence that the animal was provoked, frightened, injured, or used as part of a broader pattern of coercive control?
• What role does the pet play in the child’s daily life, emotional regulation, and sense of safety?

Not every dispute about a pet is evidence of abuse. But in cases involving allegations of domestic violence and child abuse, pet-related matters can provide important information about coercive control, child trauma, post-separation retaliation, and parenting capacity. Family court evaluators are charged with identifying patterns, not simply cataloging incidents. When pets become part of the abuse pattern, failing to ask about them may mean missing a critical window into how fear, attachment, and control operate within the family.

Kellsey Forest, LICSW, is a Massachusetts-based therapist, parenting coordinator, Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), and forensic social worker specializing in coercive control, domestic violence, post-separation abuse, trauma, and family court matters. She serves as an expert witness in family and criminal court cases involving intimate partner violence, child abuse, and coercive control, and provides parent coordination, mediation, and trauma-informed psychotherapy. Kellsey is the founder of The Healing Willow, LLC and is completing her last year at Simmons University obtaining her doctorate in social work, where her work focuses on survivor-centered and trauma-informed responses to abuse in family court systems.

References

Butler, K., & MacDonald, J. B. (2024). Violence against family animals in the context of intimate partner violence. Australian Institute of Family Studies. https://aifs.gov.au/resources/policy-and-practice-papers/violence-against-family-animals-context-intimate-partner

Callaghan, J. E. M., Fellin, L. C., Mavrou, S., Alexander, J. H., Deligianni-Kouimtzi, V., Papathanassiou, M., & Sixsmith, J. (2025). Part of the family: Children’s experiences with their companion animals in the context of domestic violence and abuse. Journal of Family Violence, 40(5), 863–877. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-023-00659-8

DeGue, S., & DiLillo, D. (2009). Is animal cruelty a “red flag” for family violence? Investigating co-occurring violence toward children, partners, and pets. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 24(6), 1036–1056. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260508319362

Fontes, L.A. & Nee, J. (2025). Domestic Abusers Punish Their Exes Post-Separation. Accessed at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/invisible-chains/202502/domestic-abusers-punish-their-exes-post-separation

Jegatheesan, B., Enders-Slegers, M.-J., Ormerod, E., & Boyden, P. (2020). Understanding the link between animal cruelty and family violence: The bioecological systems model. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(9), Article 3116. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17093116