One Dog. One Verdict. One Movement

The day the judge delivered the small-claims verdict in Illinois, something irrevocable shifted in Dr. / Rev. Tameer Siddiqui—known simply as “Tameer.” It wasn’t just the blow of losing Rosie. It was the moment she understood, viscerally, that the system meant to protect the vulnerable still sees dogs as property instead of family.
Rosie wasn’t property to her. She was an anchor. A presence. A pulse.

A Story That Reveals a Systemic Gap
Rosie, a senior Puggle with soulful brown eyes and a gentle, grounding presence, was more than a pet—she was family. Originally brought into the relationship by Tameer’s former partner, Rosie soon became the emotional anchor of the household: a home shaped by consistency, structure, and care.
When Rosie entered the home, she was already struggling with severe separation anxiety. Drawing on her clinical background in animal-assisted interventions, Tameer began integrating Rosie into her grounding and mindfulness routines, weaving her into the rhythm of daily life. Rosie accompanied her during pilates sessions as a form of co-regulation, rested beside her during meditation, and was consistently incorporated into the household’s stabilizing rituals. In attachment terms, Tameer became Rosie’s secure base—the attachment figure whose presence offers safety, predictability, and emotional regulation, enabling the animal to explore the world with confidence and return for comfort when overwhelmed.
During work hours, Rosie was almost always nearby: sleeping beneath Tameer’s desk while she saw clients remotely, or curled up behind her chair as she supported others in navigating their own attachment wounds and relationships with their animals. Over time, Rosie’s calming presence became part of the therapeutic environment itself. Clients knew her by name, sensed her grounding energy, and immediately felt her absence once she was taken.

A Sudden Separation
This pattern of care continued even after the couple separated. Rosie remained with Tameer the majority of the time, and Tameer continued to serve as her primary caregiver—maintaining the routines, grounding rituals, and stability Rosie depended on. Then, nearly a month after the breakup, everything changed abruptly. One afternoon, after returning home from a walk with Rosie, Tameer’s former partner pulled into the driveway, placed Rosie into the car, and assured Tameer she would be bringing her back.
She never did.
Despite numerous good-faith efforts to reconnect, request visitation, and advocate for Rosie’s well-being— particularly given her history of severe separation anxiety —Tameer has not seen Rosie since that day. That moment marked the beginning of a different kind of grief: not only losing daily life with Rosie, but realizing how easily caregiving, attachment, and lived reality could be erased by people who knew the truth—and by a legal system that wasn’t built to recognize it.

When the System Weaponizes Attachment
During this same period, Tameer says she was hit with the peak of relational aggression from her former partner and their circle; a wave of misinformation, mischaracterizations, and weaponized mental-health insinuations that pushed into the community, all without a single person asking her what happened. The level of isolation was destabilizing after nearly a decade of being deeply embedded with her former partner’s friends and family.
“Everyone who could have acted turned a blind eye,” said Tameer. “It felt like I was screaming into a void—unheard, dismissed, erased. But Rosie’s truth deserved to be heard, even if mine wasn’t. I can’t rely on the same circle that benefited from silence and smears to grasp the gravity of what happened—not just to me, but especially to Rosie. This should never happen to any animal or caregiver.”
“It’s a classic pattern of reactive abuse: declaring someone unstable, removing their emotional anchor, and then framing their understandable distress as evidence— despite it being far less reactive than the behavior of others harming them.” -Tameer
The human impact was devastating. But the legal consequences were even sharper.

When the Law Works Against Compassion
Tameer served as Rosie’s primary caregiver for the longest continuous stretch of Rosie’s life. And because Illinois only considers an animal’s well-being in cases involving married couples, she also submitted a notarized domestic partnership affidavit and a marriage license application completed by both partners—documents that demonstrated their shared intent to merge households, finances, and caregiving responsibilities.
Under current law, none of it mattered.

Rock bottom arrived when Tameer finally retrieved access to Rosie’s medical documentation and discovered that despite being the co-signer and listed emergency contact, she had been removed from the record without notice. By then, the pattern of erasure was familiar—but what destabilized her was seeing Rosie’s decline documented on paper. After more than six years of continuous care, Rosie showed lethargy, gastrointestinal distress, and heightened anxiety— classic signs of separation trauma layered on top of the isolation Tameer was already experiencing.

Clarifying Rosie’s Role — Without Creating Hierarchies Shortly after seeing Rosie’s documented decline, Tameer experienced her own. Not long after, she submitted medical documentation from her psychologist identifying Rosie as a service dog. But she is clear about one thing: the service-dog designation was never the point.

Because Tameer’s mental health had already been weaponized in the weeks following Rosie’s removal, Tameer was reluctant to disclose the depth of the therapeutic support Rosie provided her. She did not want to introduce a label that could overshadow the larger issue —or imply that only people with documented disabilities, or only dogs with medical classifications, deserve protection.
According to Tameer, ““There is privilege in even having access to a medically prescribed animal,” she said. “Not everyone can afford therapy, psychiatric evaluation, or the process required to obtain that documentation. I didn’t want Rosie’s worth—or anyone’s pet’s worth—to hinge on a label that many people can’t access.”

Her focus, she emphasized, was never on proving her own vulnerability or elevating Rosie into a special category, but on the fundamentals:
Rosie’s history of separation anxiety, her reliance on consistent caregiving, the stability she had known for years, and the harm caused by a sudden, unregulated separation. Tameer clarifies, “I wasn’t trying to create a hierarchy where service dogs deserve more rights; I was trying to show that all animals—and the people who care for them—deserve consideration. A label shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Love, attachment, and caregiving should.”
Earlier that year, at the first hearing, Tameer requested that Rosie be allowed to choose where she wanted to live—referencing a well-known Judge Judy case in which a dog ran immediately to the person he recognized as home. The judge rejected the idea, comparing it to “asking a car to take the witness stand.”

“It was devastating,” she said. “I wasn’t comparing Rosie to a car—I was trying to explain attachment.”
By the time the evidentiary hearing occurred, the procedural inequities had only deepened. The session began more than an hour late. Key witnesses—Rosie’s sitter, groomer, and neighbors—were forced to leave for work before testifying. Their affidavits were dismissed as “hearsay.” Representing herself pro se, Tameer was given less than thirty minutes to present countless binders of evidence detailing years of caregiving, cost, care, and control—evidence that demonstrated clear superior possessory interest.
The only records admitted from the opposing party were veterinary documents that Tameer herself had attended and paid for, along with outdated files predating Rosie’s life with her—all of which listed an entirely different owner—and two social media photos showing that Rosie had been a pet before Tameer entered the picture.

At the evidentiary hearing, the presiding judge declined to apply Illinois’ “superior possessory interest” guidance and instead focused narrowly on “sequence”—who had Rosie first. He then compared the situation to “Christopher Columbus discovering America.”
By your own example, you’ve proven my point,” she replied. “Someone who comes second can claim ownership through force, not truth — that’s what Columbus did.
She was told to “take a seat.”

“It felt like everything real—evidence, caregiving, Rosie’s well-being—had become invisible,” she said. “The truth was right there, but the system wasn’t willing to see it.”
Continuing Her Work in the Midst of Loss
Despite reputational harm and public scrutiny, Tameer maintains a thriving clinical practice, operates a successful e-commerce store, and continues to write music—one of her songs recently landing in the UK Apple iTunes Top 40 Alternative Playlist.
Of Love, Distance, and Devotion
Of all her roles, Tameer remains most devoted to telling Rosie’s story. She made Rosie a vow: to make the rest of her life the best of her life.
Today, she lives just four and a half miles from Rosie—a fifteen-minute drive.
“To be so close yet so distant,” she said, “is its own heartbreak.”
If she cannot be part of Rosie’s present life, she is determined to honor Rosie by fighting for reforms that protect others.

“At the end of the day, a dog remembers who fed them, who held them, who protected them. They don’t care about litigation. They care about love.”

A Call for Reform Rosie’s case highlights a major national gap. Several states—including Alaska, California, New York, Maine, and Illinois—allow courts to consider an animal’s well-being, but only in divorce cases.
There is not a single U.S. state that requires courts to consider animal welfare, attachment, or caregiving history in disputes involving unmarried partners.
If Illinois adopts reforms requiring courts to evaluate caregiving history and an animal’s welfare in all pet- custody disputes:
Illinois would become the first U.S. state where courts must consider an animal’s welfare and caregiving history in every custody case—not only divorce.
“This isn’t about winning,” said Tameer. “It’s about progress. It’s about ensuring no one else loses a living being they cared for simply because the law hasn’t evolved.”
Her hope is that Rosie’s case becomes a catalyst for legislation that finally recognizes animals as more than property.

About Tameer
Dr. and Rev. Tameer Siddiqui (“Tameer”) is a licensed clinical psychologist in Illinois whose work integrates trauma-informed care, transpersonal psychology, and the science of the human–animal bond. Her early training at the VA Medical Center in North Chicago exposed her to the therapeutic role animals play in supporting veterans with PTSD, deepening her clinical focus on attachment, safety, and emotional stabilization.
Tameer deeply believes in animals as emotional stabilizers and partners in healing. She helps clients strengthen their attachment systems through co-regulation and embodied relational work. She continues to explore the powerful intersection of psychology, relational repair, and the human–animal bond, and is a proud member of the American Association of Animal-Assisted Intervention Professionals (AAAIP).
Tameer is currently integrating her lived experience within the social, familial, and justice systems that enabled silencing, erasure, and procedural inequity, and is writing about the psychological architecture of narcissistic defenses that operate within these systems. Before expanding this work publicly, Tameer remains focused on drafting legislation, assembling an advocacy team, and launching Rosie’s Law—a nationwide effort to ensure that pets are recognized as family, not property.
In the event that the law does not rise to meet the modern

welfare standards demanded by today’s caregivers and animal-welfare advocates, Tameer intends to bring Rosie’s story to professional screenwriters and register the project with the Writers Guild of America, with the goal of developing it into a full-length film or Netflix documentary. Her commitment remains the same in every medium: Rosie’s truth must be heard, and the system must evolve. Rosie’s story is now resonating with thousands of caregivers across the country, igniting a growing coalition calling for legislative change.