[ambrose]

I seem to recall that in most jurisdictions, you can only recover emotional distress damages when witnessing something bad happening to an immediate family member. A dog would not qualify under such a rule.

[TaZ]

"I seem to recall that in most jurisdictions, you can only recover emotional distress damages when witnessing something bad happening to an immediate family member. A dog would not qualify under such a rule."

Well, you better check your law references again...it has nothing at all to do with what caused the emotional distress, just that it was wrongly inflicted, either intentionally or negligently...