Thirty-three percent of Americans have stayed in a relationship they wanted to end because they couldn’t stomach the idea of losing a shared pet, according to a new DatingAdvice.com and Prodege survey. That’s one in three people choosing an unhappy relationship over an empty leash hook by the door. Men were more likely to do it than women, 37% versus 29%, and dogs — not cats, not exotic pets — were overwhelmingly the reason people stayed. The same survey found most Americans have caught on to the problem: 61% now say they’d sign a “pet-nup,” a prenuptial-style custody agreement written specifically for pets, before things ever get messy.
The Dog Is the Dealbreaker
Among the 33% who stayed in a relationship they wanted out of, 22% pointed to a dog as the reason, compared with 8% for a cat and just 3% for an exotic pet, per the DatingAdvice/Prodege survey of 1,498 U.S. adults fielded in March 2026. Pets aren’t treated like property in most people’s heads, even though family courts often still treat them exactly that way, and joint custody isn’t legally settled in the vast majority of states. Walking away from a relationship can mean walking away from the dog for good, and a lot of people would rather stay unhappy than risk that.
That risk is not hypothetical. A separate MetLife Pet Insurance survey of 1,000 U.S. pet owners, fielded in September 2025, found 29% had actually gone through a breakup while co-owning a pet — and for 29% of that group, fighting over the pet made an already hard breakup messier. The same survey found a real gender skew in who ends up keeping the animal: women kept custody in 68% of breakups they reported, compared with 49% of men.
Why the “Pet-Nup” Is Suddenly Mainstream
Sixty-one percent of respondents to the DatingAdvice/Prodege survey now support signing some form of pet prenup — 24% think every couple should have one, and 48% would want one specifically for pets they adopted together, while 28% oppose the idea outright. Younger generations are the most willing to formalize it: 66% of Gen Z and 64% of millennials said they’d sign a pet-nup, compared with 53% of Gen X and 50% of boomers.
MetLife’s numbers tell a similar story from the insurance side: 49% of pet owners said they’d sign a pet prenup in a future relationship, and 46% believe pet custody deserves the same legal weight as child custody currently gets in divorce proceedings. When asked what clauses mattered most, respondents ranked who keeps the pet (88%), visitation schedules (70%), vet-cost responsibility (67%), and splitting monthly pet expenses (57%) as their top priorities.
The Jealousy Doesn’t End When the Relationship Does
Forty-five percent of people surveyed by DatingAdvice and Prodege said they’d feel jealous if an ex’s new partner spent time with a pet they used to share — Gen Z reported the sharpest jealousy at 33%, boomers the least at 19%, and 16% overall said they’d flatly “hate” the scenario. Preferences on ongoing custody split almost evenly: 40% would agree to share custody long-term, 40% would refuse, and 20% would only agree to something temporary. More tellingly, 55% said they would not date someone who still regularly saw an ex just to spend time with a pet.
MetLife’s data shows the same anxiety playing out in smaller, more private ways. Twelve percent of pet owners admitted to visiting a pet they no longer had access to after a breakup, and 13% said they’d checked an ex’s social media specifically to keep tabs on the animal’s wellbeing. Twenty-eight percent said they’d be willing to sue an ex over pet custody, and 14% have already put a formal shared-custody or visitation schedule in writing — treating a pet dispute with the same seriousness once reserved for child custody arrangements.
The Law Is Still Catching Up
Part of why people stay stuck is that most state courts still treat pets as property to be divided, not as family members with their own interests. Alaska changed that first, passing a 2016 law — the Animal Legal Defense Fund reports — requiring judges to consider “the well-being of the animal” in divorce and custody disputes and allowing courts to grant joint ownership. Illinois and California followed in 2018, and six more states and Washington, D.C. have since passed similar laws. But that still leaves the large majority of states with no legal framework for pet custody at all, which helps explain why a private, informal pet-nup has become the workaround couples are reaching for instead of waiting on their legislature.
Somewhere along the way, the family dog quietly became one of the most fought-over assets in modern breakups — more emotionally loaded, by these numbers, than furniture, bank accounts, or who keeps the apartment. Signing something in writing before a relationship ends might look unromantic. Increasingly, couples are deciding it’s actually the more honest move.
