Legally, a child under the age of age cannot technically own anything unless they are emancipated which is a whole other thing. So, legally and technically, boring I know, the parent is always the owner of the dog. I feel this should be the case in reality as well since you cannot responsibly entrust a child with the full 100% care of a dog. A perfect analogy would be whether you would allow them be responsbile for a child(baby) completely and 100%. Babysitting is one thing but, imo, they are not responsible even and do not have the judgment necessary to do it 24/7. Studies have been done with regard to judgment of teeenagers in the area of driving and it has been proving that we do not achieve our full reasoning powers until about age 25.
Amazing, huh? A lot of people have kids before 25 so I would say 18 to own a dog. This is a generalization but it would be great if we could evaluate it on a cae by case basis because I agree that some people are never old enough to own and care for a dog! |