urge us to adopt the view that companion animals are more properly considered as family members than personal property, so that recovery for noneconomic damage occasioned by their loss should be similarly available as for the wrongful death of next of kin. See 14 V.S.A. §§ 1491, 1492(b) (enabling recovery by parent for the “loss of love and companionship” of a deceased child and “for destruction of the parent-child relationship”); Dubaniewicz v. Houman, 2006 VT 99, ¶¶ 6-16, 180 Vt. 367, 910 A.2d 897 (allowing siblings to recover damages for loss of companionship under the wrongful-death statutes when sibling is the next of kin and provides evidence of physical, psychological, and emotional relationship); Hartnett v. Union Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 153 Vt. 152, 156, 569 A.2d 486, 488 (1989) (<HOLDING>). Citing a modern regard for pets as family
holding that de facto parentchild relationship does not support a finding of qualifyingrelative status holding that attorneys fees and costs may not be awarded as child support when they are incurred in a suit to modify the parentchild relationship that does not involve the enforcement of a child support obligation holding that consortium is not a part of the parentchild relationship holding that the clear and convincing standard must apply in terminating the parentchild relationship after the children have been adjudicated dependent or neglected holding that destruction of the parentchild relationship includes grief and mental anguish