A Dog Lawyer Saves The Day!

By Amy Fernandez

An interesting dog item appeared in the paper last week. As we know, the legal biz has become quite specialized with tax law, criminal law, and family law, just to name a few fields of specialization. Apparently, we now have a dog lawyer. Richard Rosenthal has specialized in this field for the past decade. This profile outlined his background and reasons for making his niche in such an obscure field, a label that some would consider open to debate.

The article recounted some of his more memorable cases. And my initial reaction was predictable. Far too many dog owners are idiots and shouldn’t have dogs, in my opinion. For example, Rosenthal is a Greyhound lover and currently has several. So, he was the natural choice to defend a Greyhound that was scheduled for demolition after killing a Pomeranian at a public dog park. You gotta wonder what either one of those owners had in mind when they decided it would be great fun to leave a Greyhound and a Pom off lead together. The inevitable happened and after demonstrating such responsible ownership, the Pom’s owner responded by demanding that the Greyhound be euthanized. Sensible people making more sensible decisions intervened.

Then there was the chicken killing Husky. The obvious question is what does this owner expect by allowing their dog to run loose unsupervised?

According to the story, Rosenthal made his reputation defending a Golden named Buddy in Milford, Connecticut–a state that Rosenthal considers to be the epicenter of canine injustice. But once again, I tend to put this crime on irresponsible ownership.   Okay, Goldens are big, energetic dogs. They are built for a long day of hunting. Unfortunately, Buddy got a bit too rambunctious and knocked down an old lady. The woman’s son likewise demanded that he be euthanized.  After a high publicity legal battle Buddy was saved. Rosenthal has also defended dogs (technically owners) fighting to stop courts from euthanizing their dogs.

Every case is unique but while reading this story, I kept coming back to the common denomination of way too many stupid, careless owners. Of course, that’s just my opinion.

That’s probably why this formerly oddball field of animal law is gaining ground. Personally, I have mixed feelings about the concept of animal law. Far too often, it’s misused to promote AR ideology, which is primarily focused on the nonsensical concept of granting legal standing to animals. Rosenthal draws the line there by saying, “I am an oddity in animal law in the sense that the holy grail of the animal law is to have animals declared something other than property.” I’m sorry, I think the idea of non-human personhood is nuts, legally, logically and morally.

However, there is definitely a need for more expansive legal thinking in this area. As Rosenthal stated, animal control officers frequently wield immense authority with minimal training as far as accurately evaluating and responding to situations. And once a dog is impounded and scheduled for demolition, owners rarely have a means to intervene.

Needless to say, a good proportion of these cases are pro bono work. He makes his money on pet custody battles, and he admits that those bills can run pretty high when two people fight over a dog. Even AKC, the masters of dissembling, take a clearly discouraging stance on co-ownerships.

Rosenthal’s interview provided plenty to think about. But it still comes down to the same old story of dogs taking the blame for stupid, irresponsible owners.

Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=254991

Posted by Liz on Jan 11 2023. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.