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North Carolina has landed in the national animal-rights spotlight with two recent hoarding cases that leaned on an unusual state law that allows anyone to sue an animal abuser.

A Sanford couple had 300 animals found in filthy cages in 2005, thought to be the largest animal-hoarding case in the country. The other concerned Janie Conyers, a North Raleigh poodle breeder who had more than 100 dogs and birds that were seized last fall because of negligence.

In Conyers' case, Animal Legal Defense Fund attorneys from the West Coast flew in, took the lead from the county to sue Conyers and brokered an agreement that prevents her from owning animals.

Abuse and cruelty cases are the most common in animal law, but Reppy said animal law will diversify as courts are asked to consider what to to do when pets and their owners come into contact with the law.

Wealthy dogs

Terry, the High Point publisher, set up a trust, worth about $1 million, for his six golden retrievers, and arranged for caretaker Robin Groban to live in his house and care for them until the end of their lives, Groban said.

Groban meets with a lot of skepticism when she tells people that Terry, who also donated $20 million to build a new veterinary hospital at N.C State, set up the trust for the dogs, of which three remain living.

But the dogs were family to Terry, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

"You know that they're being taken care of, they're not being farmed out," Groban said. "You would not want to separate them."

In North Carolina, the law generally sees pets as property, but that idea is slowly changing, said Lee Rosen, a Raleigh divorce attorney. Rosen has seen judges start to address pets in the same manner as children in custody disputes.

Rosen tells clients to make sure they're the ones who take the animals to vet appointments and groomers if they're going to fight for custody of a pet.

"You want your name to be on those documents," he said.

He and lawyers in his office sometimes wonder whether couples fight over pets just for the sake of fighting.

"They say they want the cat, but they're going to use the pet as a negotiating lever," he said.

Custody battles

In one case, a pet sparked a divorce when a man became frustrated at his wife's insistence that their Saint Bernard share their bed, Rosen said. He told her it was him or the dog.

She chose the dog.

Janice Sitzes, an assistant director of marketing for N.C. State University's Office of Professional Development, underwent a protracted custody battle when she and her husband separated in 2001 and both wanted custody of their golden retrievers, Amber and Caribe.

Sitzes and her ex-husband had to provide proof of a suitable living environment, and they had to ask friends and family to write affidavits testifying as to the quality of his or her dog parenting. Sitzes' attorney argued that Caribe was a gift to her before the marriage and thus not a marital asset.

"That was probably the nasty part of the divorce," Sitzes said. "We didn't have any two-legged children."

A judge decided to give one dog to each. Caribe died in December from cancer, giving Sitzes several years with her companion that she wouldn't have otherwise had.

"I would do it all over again," she said. "It's just money."

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