Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

First of all, all private property falls into two classes: real property and personal property. Real property, the subject of this LawGuru topic, deals with land and things affixed to land, such as houses. Dogs are personal property, not real estate and real property. It is a common mistake for LawGuru users to ask questions about personal property under their "Real Estate and Real Property" topic heading. Nevertheless, I'll try to give you an answer:

In theory, you could initiate a lawsuit in Superior Court to have the court determine ownership of the dog. Such a suit would not be within the subject-matter jurisdiction of a small-claims court, I believe. However, unless there are additional facts, the Superior Court would probably rule that you co-own the dog, and the court has no power to alter that situation.

There is an alternative. In the Code of Civil Procedure, there is a special kind of legal action or lawsuit called "partition" which is used to force the sale of property in unhappy co-ownership. The law is almost always used for real property (houses, farms, etc.), but it can also be used to get a court-ordered sale of personal property like pets, at least in theory. See CCP sections 872.010 to 874.240. The parties to a partition suit can agree to a sub-procedure called "partition by appraisal" in which the property is not solf to a third party, but is sold to one of the litigants, at an appraised price. See CCP 873.910 to 873.980.

I don't recommend pursuing a partition action because it would be expensive and time-consuming, but do feel it is worth mentioning as a remote possibility.