A Great Dane named Roxy has a permanent home after North Carolina's second-highest court settled a bitter breakup dispute over who actually owns her. The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that Roxy belongs to Laura Volastro, finding that her ex-partner, Neils Moore, gave her the dog as a Christmas gift back when the couple was still together on the North Carolina coast.
The case traces back to December 2023, when Moore and Volastro decided to get a dog together, according to WRAL. Moore put down a $500 security deposit and later paid the remaining $500 balance, and he was listed as Roxy's official buyer when the couple picked her up in January 2024. Despite his name on the paperwork, the appeals court determined the dog was actually intended as a gift to Volastro, upholding an earlier district court ruling on the same point.
A Facebook Post Becomes Key Evidence
Central to the court's decision was a Facebook message Volastro posted on Christmas, thanking Moore for buying Roxy as a Christmas gift, per the station's report. That kind of digital paper trail carries real weight in North Carolina courtrooms, since judges resolving disputed pet ownership rely on tangible evidence of caregiving and intent — including receipts, registration records, and written communications between the parties — to sort out who actually owns an animal, according to Ellis Family Law.
Volastro was also established as Roxy's main caregiver, another factor the court weighed alongside the Facebook post. After Moore and Volastro broke up, a Dare County lower court had already awarded custody of Roxy to Volastro, but Moore appealed that ruling, arguing he should keep the dog he paid for and whose purchase listed him as the buyer.
Why the Purchase Receipt Wasn't Enough
The outcome hinged on a specific legal test. Establishing a valid gift of personal property under North Carolina law requires proving three elements: the donor's present intent to give, delivery of the item, and acceptance by the recipient, according to the Pierce Law Group. Once a gift like that is completed while both parties are alive, ownership transfers permanently to the recipient regardless of who actually paid for it.
That legal framework exists because North Carolina treats pets strictly as personal property under state law, not as something courts evaluate the way they would child custody. Under North Carolina General Statutes § 50-20, animals are legally classified alongside furniture and vehicles, according to the North Carolina Divorce Lawyers Blog, leaving judges no authority to order pet visitation schedules or shared custody arrangements the way they might for children.
In North Carolina appellate cases involving disputed pet ownership, such as Franklin v. Palmer, the burden of proof falls entirely on whichever party claims an animal was gifted to them, according to Mark L. Hayes Attorney at Law. In that earlier case, the Court of Appeals reversed a trial court because the judge had improperly forced the original owner to disprove that a gift occurred, rather than requiring the person claiming the gift to prove it.
North Carolina's Strict Property Rules Versus a National Shift
North Carolina's rigid property-based approach stands apart from a growing number of states rethinking how courts handle pets in breakups. At least nine states — including California, Illinois, Alaska, New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Delaware, and Rhode Island — plus Washington D.C., have enacted statutes letting or requiring courts to weigh a pet's well-being when dividing property in divorce, according to Patify. Colorado lawmakers introduced similar legislation this year, House Bill 26-1131, which would let family court judges weigh caregiving history and emotional attachment rather than treating pets purely as chattel.
North Carolina has one narrow statutory exception to its property-only approach: under N.C.G.S. § 50B-3(a)(8), judges can grant a party temporary exclusive possession and care of a household pet as part of a domestic violence protective order. Outside of that context, though, state family courts still lack any authority to order ongoing pet visitation.
A similar pet-custody fight played out earlier this year in California, where an appeals court upheld a denial of shared dog custody in a case Hoodline covered in a San Diego dog custody appeal, while also sanctioning an attorney $5,000 for submitting AI-generated, fabricated case law. That case underscored how even in states with more flexible pet-custody standards, procedural missteps can doom an appeal regardless of the underlying facts.
For now, Roxy's fate in North Carolina rests on a Christmas message and a caregiving record, not a receipt. The ruling reinforces that in states without best-interest statutes, documentation of gifts and day-to-day care can matter more than whose name appears on the bill of sale.
