Why license pets?
Carole Brown, Matfield Green
Originally published 02:40 p.m., February 19, 2008
Updated 02:40 p.m., February 19, 2008
Whether or not there is a legitimate reason for licensing animals, the claim that doing so is the “best way to track lost pets” (“Tag That Pup!” Jan. 17) does not stand to reason.
Nothing about a city-issued tag is any more effective than an unofficial ID tag or label attached to the animal’s collar. With owner or veterinarian contact information, the latter is a more direct way to return the animal and will often obviate law enforcement’s involvement.
Moreover, if the return of a lost pet were the purpose of licensing, the city would have no reason to be concerned with and base fees on an animal’s reproductive status. Doing so presupposes that an unneutered animal will be more of a burden to the city and is tantamount to charging motorists a yearly fee on the assumption that they will at some point run afoul of the traffic laws.
If the city is going to claim the right to impound animals, it is obligated to come up with a reasonable and consistent time period in which the owner must claim the animal, not a capricious system based on available space. This threat, too, is no justification for animal licensing: Licensed animals that escape without their collars and tags or slip their collar would meet with the same fate. Or is the city going to force micro-chipping — “for your own good”? In which case, licensing would still be still irrelevant for returning the animal.
Acting as they do as a pipeline for the edicts of authority, the media should adopt a critical stance toward these pronouncements.