Are your dogs licensed with the county?

[BostonBanker]

I think our town goes out of its way to be pretty dog friendly; considering the low price for registering dogs, it is 100% acceptable to me to just pay it.

The police have access to the records, and when they found an intact golden running loose at a major intersection, just started calling down the list of people who had a dog fitting that description registered to help find his owner. When I did animal control (a few towns over) I'd do the same thing; if I picked up a loose dog, before I drove it to the kennel (where you would have to pay a fine to get it back), I would go through the lists from the last few years and try to find the owner.

We also have tons of great recreation areas that are off-leash dog friendly and the new dog park.

 

[stafinois]

Where I live now has no licensing or animal control. We depend on the police to do the job. The town police usually take to dogs to a vet clinic that contract with the city as impound, if the officer has time and skill to catch the dog. The county officers just shoot since they don't contract with anybody for impound. I wish we did have licensing. I'd gladly pay it if it funded better animal control services.

I did pay them when I lived in Portland. And I agree with everything below.

Well the revenue from pet licenses in my city support animal control specifically, which is decent in my city and as I've said I'm happy to support them. They do a fair amount of community education, humane investigations, and sheltering. The city license is also required to get a city-run off leash park license (overseen by the park and rec department, not animal control, which is why they are two separate licenses), which allows me access to a really stellar dog park down on the river bottoms.

For my pets specifically, if lost they get a free ride directly to my home from animal control instead of getting taken to the shelter. Our AC has also put together a little rewards card with several local businesses that gives you discounts. But most importantly to me, it's important to me to keep that paper trail of a "responsible" dog owner. ETA: The same reason I got a CGC for Squash, really. It doesn't mean THAT much to me, but it looks good for a big, intimidating muscly dog to have as many publicly perceived positive things on his side if anything or anyone sketchy happens.

There are all sorts of things that municipalities micromanage about citizens' property that specify what you can and can't do. Honestly, there's no "principal of the thing" that I feel oppressed over, nor would this be the hill I wanted to die on even if I did. And I don't mind paying fees if I get stuff I value out of it - which I feel I do, both personally and for animals in my community as a whole.

(FWIW I don't license my cats even though legally I'm supposed to, because they never leave the house and nobody is going to accuse my 10# cat of anything nefarious.)

 

[M&M's Mommy]

It's required by law here, so yes, all my dogs are licensed.