Meet Gary, the cat who ended a friendship and cost $25,000 in legal fees

First they were roommates, and then they were friends. But after Jessica Yang and Nicole DeNardo couldn’t agree on who should keep Gary — the exotic shorthair that Yang bought and DeNardo had been taking care of — it took a Common Pleas Court judge to decide.

The two former roommates say they disagreed over whether Yang had given Gary to DeNardo or whether it was a temporary arrangement. In December 2024, Yang sued DeNardo to make her return the cat.

“She said I was unfit to be a pet parent,” Yang said. “She said I was childish and selfish for even wanting Gary back. She kept asking me to consider the feelings and preferences of Gary.”

Two lawyers contacted for this story say that situations like this one are on the rise, though the money spent on such a case — Yang spent $20,000, DeNardo, $5,000 — is a bit remarkable.

“People love their animals, and people are willing to spend a lot of money in legal fees to reclaim their animals,” said Rebecca Glenn-Dinwoodie, a Doylestown-based family and animal lawyer not involved in the case.

But for the two women, the fight over the small, cuddly cat with blue eyes became a catastrophe that dragged on for a year.

“She just didn’t want me to have him,” DeNardo said. “It was personal. It was about beating me.”

Yang, 33, purchased Gary for $1,000 when she was living in Pittsburgh in 2018. She named him after the SpongeBob SquarePants TV show character Gary the Snail.

In the spring of 2022, Yang moved from New Mexico to Philadelphia. She said that with a new contract as a nurse anesthetist, she expected to travel for work every two weeks, making a roommate situation ideal.

She and DeNardo, 31, met on a Facebook group for people seeking roommates and soon moved into an apartment together in Graduate Hospital. DeNardo, who works in finance, often worked from home, spending a lot of time with Gary.

Yang and DeNardo each said they became friends and travel buddies. They took snowboarding trips to Vermont and Colorado and hiked at Lake Havasu, Ariz.

They even got matching alien tattoos together. Yang said hers was a nod to her time living near Roswell, the UFO tourist town in New Mexico. DeNardo said the alien paired well with her tattoo of Saturn, a planet linked to her zodiac sign of Capricorn.

Yang said as the apartment’s lease was coming to an end around March 2024, she was going through a difficult time. She and her long-term boyfriend had just broken up. She had just changed jobs. And, she had just bought a house in Passyunk Square that needed extensive renovations.

That was when, as she remembers it, DeNardo offered to take the cat. “I was like, how convenient for Gary,” Yang said. “And I thought it would be good for her, too.”

That summer, Yang commissioned a portrait of Gary, surrounded by snowboards, trekking poles, and other symbols of the two women’s friendship. There were two prints, both framed, one for each of them.

Things began to go south when Yang said she learned that DeNardo had changed Gary’s last name at the vet — from Yang to DeNardo — and added her name to the cat’s microchip. DeNardo, Yang said, considered the cat hers.

It’s one of several details DeNardo remembers differently. DeNardo said the vet’s office changed the cat’s last name, not her. As for the microchip, which would help people identify Gary’s owner if he were to get lost, she said she added her name for practical reasons — she was the one who was around.

DeNardo said she was often the one who took care of Gary. She fed him, she said, and took him to the vet. She even “cleaned his eyeballs” every day — something shorthair cats often need.

“He was always in my life, always on the windowsill next to me,” DeNardo said.

She provided a timeline showing she’d spent more time with Gary than Yang. She offered lists of friends who would attest Gary was her cat — a fact many people in her lifefound mildly amusing, since her father and her brother are also both named Gary.

DeNardo said she believes that somehow, the issue became personal after a 2023 incident where she told Yang they needed to take the cat to the vet.

“I think she viewed that more as a personal attack,” DeNardo said. “For me, this was always only about Gary’s well-being.”

After a yearlong process that involved a hearing and a bench trial, the court ruled in Yang’s favor. Yang proved she had purchased the cat, and DeNardo had to give him up.

DeNardo blames the Pennsylvania legal system, which views animals as property. “You can spend years scooping litter, cleaning his eyeballs, and the court tells you none of that matters, because pets are property,” she said.

A few other states, such as New York, do define pets the way DeNardo had hoped the court would view Gary, said Daniel Howard, an associate family law attorney at Petrelli Previtera in Center City.

“Some states have pet custody statutes that look similar to what we see in child custody, looking at the welfare of the animal,” Howard said.

Howard pointed out that in September the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a bill that would change how pets are recognized in divorce proceedings. (The bill would have to pass the state Senate and get the governor’s approval for enactment).

However, even if this bill were to pass, it would not apply to cases where the two people aren’t married, Howard said.

Still, he said, attitudes are changing around the ways animals should be viewed by the courts. Laws that worked well for farm animals don’t fit as neatly for cats or dogs.

“For a lot of people, their pets really are their children,” Howard said. “And I think there needs to be some kind of an update to look at that.”

Glenn-Dinwoodie said the situation also speaks to the need for people — even if they’re just roommates, or friends — to put things in writing when they enter a living arrangement.

“Just have clear conversations, clear expectations, but also [take] that extra step so that, if ownership is ever disputed ... you have enough proof. Because the court needs proof,” she said.

For Yang, the whole episode felt like a misuse of time and resources. It left her wanting to raise money for animals, “because $25,000 could save a lot of cats.”

DeNardo said the dispute showed her that doing what you think is right doesn’t always lead to the outcome you want. At her apartment, she gestured toward the window, where she said Gary spent countless hours watching the birds that would perch outside.

“He’s just a really playful, sweet, cat,” DeNardo said. ”He was my buddy... I just hope he’s OK and has all the things he needs, and is living a good life. If he’s happy, I’m happy.”

Clarification: This article has been updated to reflect DeNardo’s assertion that she took care of Gary even when Yang was home.