No matter how much you love your dog, taking them for a walk can sometimes feel like a chore.

But you might want to consider picking up that lead if your marriage is on the rocks, as legal campaigners say dogs in divorce cases should be given to the spouse who walks it – not who pays for it.

A group of pet-loving lawyers are pushing for a change in the law which would mean dogs are awarded to their primary care-giver in bitter divorces.

For now, pets are treated like any other property, so judges may simply give them to whoever paid for them.

This means vengeful spouses can keep their former partner’s much-loved pet – even if they have no bond with them.

But the Working Group on Pets in Divorce and Separation wants judges to consider the dog’s welfare to avoid them being ‘weaponised’ by warring exes. Experts have shown how they can be affected if taken away from their primary carer or if they have to regularly move between homes.

Sarah Lucy Cooper, a barrister at Thomas More Chambers in London and co-founder of the working group, said pets are becoming battlegrounds in divorce cases. She told the Mail: ‘Divorce doesn’t tend to bring out the best in people. People can weaponise the pet. A spouse who is not interested in it may say they’re going to take the pet because they know it’s going to upset the other spouse.

‘It would be giving some recognition that a domesticated pet shouldn’t have the same status as a fridge or an oven.’ 

Ms Cooper, who owns a two-year-old schnauzer-poodle cross called Apollo, was inspired to found the group after acting in a divorce case last year involving a couple fighting over a dog, with her legal opponent in the case now a member the working group too.

They want a change in the law for dogs, cats and other family pets, and eventually hope to extend it to cases where unmarried couples are separating.

Supporters of a legal change include the Tory peer Baroness Berridge, who raised the issue in the House of Lords in February.