This is an intentionally misleading headline. This has nothing to do with “custody” and everything to do with ownership. It is well established in American jurisprudence that it is not custody of animals that is determined in a divorce proceeding, but ownership. Animals are, and should be, viewed legally as property, nothing else.
While it is a somewhat interesting set of circumstances, considering that the plaintiff is alleging that his stolen property was pregnant at the time of the “theft” (and I really don’t know what the case law is in this regard) this isn’t about custody, but about stolen property, and the possession or receipt of stolen property and not about custody. The last thing we want to do is assign “rights” to an animal that are reserved exclusively to human children and their parents. That would be a dangerous and extremely slippery slope.