However, what you just described sounds like a typical taxi ride as well, i.e. with a professional driver.

It is never the dog’s fault. We brought the dog into an unnatural environment. It is in our power and thus our responsibility to keep them safe. This is why pet accidents are so devastating.

The fault in an accident, be it car and car, car and pedestrian, car and cyclist, cyclist and pedestrian, cyclist and cyclist, or even pedestrian and pedestrian, doesn't necessarily mean moral culpability. Dogs are never culpable because they lack agency, but considering them to be at fault in an accident for the purposes of determining recourse isn't too far-fetched.

Yes, it is, because "at fault" means "could have chosen to do something else that would have prevented the accident". Since, as you admit, dogs lack agency, they are incapable of choosing to do something else. The human that is guiding them needs to, well, guide them.

I think it's debatable whether calling the dog or the owner the tortfeasor makes more sense when the dog is loose, because while the owner is responsible, there's some simplicity in saying that the dog broke the rule of the road that lead to the accident.

No, it's not. A tortfeasor has to be a person. Dogs are not legally persons, so they can't be tortfeasors.

> while the owner is responsible

Yes, exactly--just as any other tortfeasor is responsible.

> there's some simplicity in saying that the dog broke the rule of the road that lead to the accident.

You could say the dog "broke" the rule in the sense that it moved its body in a way that the rule prohibits; and in a mundane description of the facts of the accident, yes, that's what you would do. But the dog is incapable of understanding the rule in the first place, so the owner is responsible for training it appropriately (or, as I would imagine is much more common these days, keeping it on a leash and exercising reasonable prudence in controlling the dog).

To drive this point home, a pigeon dive bombing your windshield in the middle of an intersection could be correctly caused the cause of an accident. The pigeon is a free bird. It has no custodian.

Pets, on the other hand, are always in someone's custody. Custody relationships are complex, but ultimately come down to "you're responsible for this." Anything a dog could do to harm itself or others could have been anticipated, should have been anticipated and is ultimately the custodian's fault.

The pigeon is a nonentity in the accident. It's as much at fault, or not, as a tree. And it doesn't need medical or cremation bills paid. Cleanup is handled about the same way as debris from a car.

In a situation where the dog or owner isn't negligent but the driver is, it's useful to talk about whether the dog was on the leash, in the crosswalk, has right of way, is walking with the walk signal on, and is visible. You might prefer to leave the dog out of it and talk about the owner, but I could see myself wanting to get straight to the point and talk about the dog. I imagine lawyers also might be inclined to cut to the chase and talk about whether the dog was following the rules of the road.

All those things, as you say, can bear on the driver's responsibility (or the owner's responsibility, if, for example, the owner allowed the dog to go out into the street when the walk signal wasn't on). But that's part of the factual description of the case. It does not assign fault to the dog; if the dog did something like go out into the street when the walk signal wasn't on, that makes it the owner's fault, not the dog's.

The only argument I have remaining is that while it's an incorrect statement, I don't think saying the dog is at fault in an accident is insulting, because being at fault in an accident is often only an honest mistake (albeit sometimes with tragic consequences).

Personally I’d blame the “paid professional” before I’d blame the being with minimal rational thought.

Mate... It's a dog, we are the care-takers. Even if a dog is messed up in the head and bites people, it's probably been influenced by its' environment - people.

If we want to have cool pets, we have got to take responsibility.