Duane Hicks
The town may offer more licensing options for pet owners in the future.
Council has directed administration to begin conducting a review and rewrite of the dog and cat bylaws to bring them up to date.
Administration also has been tasked to review and prepare an updated licensing program with a proposal to offer annual and lifetime licensing to local pet owners.
The idea behind lifetime licensing is if dog owners opt to have the vet put a microchip into their pooch, they can pay a one-time lifetime licensing fee and not have to worry about getting new tags year after year, town bylaw enforcement officer Patrick Briere told the Times.
The microchip will enable the town to identify your dog if it’s lost and then found.
The subject of microchipping and offering lifetime licensing first was broached with council back in May, 2009 but the idea was put off.
It’s now back for consideration, Briere said.
“I know the City of Thunder Bay has a program in place for quite some time now, and it’s quite a reduced rate they offer for a lifetime licence,” he noted.
“Most people in Ontario are going down that road,” Briere added. “I know Duluth, Mn. just updated their program, as well, and that kind of got the conversation going.”
Part of the conversation over whether to go ahead with the microchipping and lifetime licensing here also will include consulting the Nor-West Animal Clinic and the vet office in International Falls.
“Not everyone is going to want to do it because obviously there is a cost to getting your dog microchipped,” conceded Briere.
“Normally if you have a puppy or you get a dog from a breeder, you’re getting your dog spayed or neutered anyway, updated shots, everything all at once, so [microchipping] is put into the cost and done all at once,” he remarked.
“Most breeders microchip their animals before they adopt them out.”
Briere said dog licensing currently includes issuing a tag on an annual basis, with a different rate for altered or unaltered dogs (i.e., those which have or haven’t been fixed) and the tags are useful to identify missing dogs.
But bylaw enforcement officers also have a chip reader so when they find missing dogs, they can check them for chips.
“I know my dog was chipped,” said Briere. “I still purchased a tag but my dog was chipped, so if she went missing, there was two ways to track her down.
“I know some people won’t want to go the lifetime route because there’s that cost, but we’ll still be able to offer the annual tags if your dog’s altered or unaltered,” he added.
Briere also noted that while there is a cat bylaw here, cats currently are not licensed by the town–only dogs.
“That will be something we talk about–licensing cats–and some restrictions with cats running at large,” he said.
“We just want to make sure we go through all of the options and review everything.”
While the discussion on pet licensing has just begun, some councillors weighed in on the matter at Monday night’s regular meeting.
Coun. Ken Perry said he felt the town should be notifying dog owners each year that they should renew their dog licences, noting not everyone will be using the lifetime licensing.
Coun. John Albanese noted the cost of licenses should not be too high, adding that in International Falls, the annual licence costs only $4 for dogs and $2 for cats.
“We have to be sensible,” he stressed. “We cannot go and say $150, $200, $300.
“Let’s not punish the people who love their pets,” Albanese later added.
“If you’ve got somebody and their dog is running loose, okay, pick up the dog, punish the guy that let the dog loose–don’t punish me, the guy who goes around with my dog on a leash and picks up what he does,” he argued.
But Coun. June Caul stressed the cost of licences, whatever they may be, will “not be out of range for people.”
“We’re not trying to make a big buck off people,” she said. “We’re just trying to get this issue resolves so we don’t have all of the animals running at large and not knowing where they come from and not being able to do something with them.”
“I just hope this goes smoother than our licensing bylaw for business,” said Coun. Perry.
