It’s been a growing trend in America that adults “baby” their pets and consider them to be part of the “family”. 
I’m no different, although I do realize that the law treats pets as property in family law cases.
This story in the ABA Journal has the legal perspective on a recent court ruling regarding which party in a divorce case would get “custody” of Dexter the pug. The Philadelphia Inquirer has a longer version of the story here where Doreen Houseman (the former spouse of Eric Dare) is quoted as saying “We referred to our dog as our son.”
The current status of the case is that a New Jersey appeals court determined that the trial court should determine the “subjective value” of the dog in terms of who to award it to. It sounds like the pug custody (”pugstody”) saga will continue.