Licensing
 

The topic of licensing your dog came up on another thread so I was curious about mine and googled the laws for my county and was curious about other peoples so here's a little survey.

Do you license your dog?
How much does it cost?
What is the fine for not doing it?
Does your county seem to enforce them?
How often do you have to license them?

My answers
Do you license your dog? No, did it once and they got all her info wrong
How much does it cost? $5.00 for fixed dogs $25.00 for unfixed
What is the fine for not doing it? $50.00
Does your county seem to enforce them? No
How often do you have to license them? It's yearly

My experience on this is.... I have always liscensed my dogs, have for 15 yrs or more, whenever they started it , I dont remember. but many years. I pay my 5.00 and go home to a yard full of poo from other dogs that have never had shots let alone be licensed !!! I decided yes it is only 5.00 but the principle really irritates me.
The fact they dont enforce the law on all the poor unwanted ones. 20 miles away we have a no kill shelter, that town is the same size as where I live. Why cant they do that here and give people a chance to adopt like they do in the next county!!
Every day I see on their FB page (the next county) a cute little furbaby up for adoption and 9 of 10 get adopted right away!! The ones that dont after 90 days go to our states capitol to a very large no kill shelter and have another chance to be adopted.
If they did that here I would gladly donate more than 5 to them.I have gone before the city council and they always have a lame reason. So I just dont bother paying the 5 every year! LOL

I don't like the whole licensing thing bc I just don't understand the point of it, really.

Well we just moved, so we are still getting acclimated to MD. But Emma is licensed in GA. And it was enforced as we lived in an apartment complex. This was required in each place we lived in. I think for liability purposes. It also helps for your homeowners/rental insurance policy. I learned that too as it gave me a cheaper rate.

I found it good practice and plan to keep up with it for Emma in MD.

You moved to MD? Welcome lol

:D Well, I know it doesn't really apply as we're 'over here' but here goes...!!! :D

Dog licensing was abolished in England (not sure about the rest of the UK :rolleyes:) yeeeears ago. Apparently it cost loads more to enforce than was financially viable.

However it IS an offence to not have a collar with tag on (displaying address, phone number) or a tag stating that your dog is microchipped. There you go!!! :D

Yup. We've been here about 2 months now. LOL @lovetodream88

I knew that....I'm sooooo international....;) :p :D

A never licensed my dogs before because they were not outside on their own, and I guess since they were small I never thought it was a big deal. I did not even know how much it was or where you got them from and my vet never said anything to me about it. Then about 6 summers ago when I had my last yorkie Kirby a girl around 18 or so knocked on my door, of course Kirby ran to the dog barking his head off, and the gal asked me if I had a dog, well what could I say with Kirby nipping at my heals. My township had hired some college kids for the summer to go door to door checking for dogs. I had to pay the fine, probably only about $25.00. Shortly after that Kirby died. When I got Lola I changed Vets and my current vet sells the lic right in her office so that made it easy and I just buy it each year when I am there. However she does not wear the tags, she only wears her ID tag. is only $5.00 or $10.00. My town has a ban against pit bulls so I wonder if that is the real reason they hired the students to go door to door checking. Plus the fines probably covered their salary:D

Do you license your dog? Yes in Fulton County, GA it is required by Law. Your Vet will register you with the county upon your dog or cat receiving its first Rabies vaccination. After that the county will notify you yearly (or every three years depending on your license and Rabies vaccination schedule). Failure to license will get you a summons to Superior Court and you will be fined steeply for failure to comply. The reason they're so strict is because they use licensing to control the rabies outbreaks (we get them a lot in some counties). Also use it as a method to locate lost or misplaced dogs.

How much does it cost? Spayed Female 3 year license is $10.00

What is the fine for not doing it? There is a HUGE fine for not complying to the licensing laws. You are summons to appear before a Judge in Superior Court (the same court as Traffic violations).


Does your county seem to enforce them? Yes strictly, the only way around it is to go to a Vet outside of Fulton County for the first set of shots

How often do you have to license them? Either yearly or every 3 years.




Also should be noted that licensing in Fulton County is for both Dogs and Cats.

I read this thread and then started looking online and I can't even find anything about licensing a dog in my county. My vet has never said a word to me about getting a license for my dog. So, no, my dogs have never been licensed because I was not aware of it, or if I even am supposed to license them. I even sent a facebook message to a lady I know that is huge into dog rescue in this area to ask her about it and she won't even respond to my facebook message about it.

I would gladly pay $5 or whatever to license my dogs here, but I don't even know where to go to do it. Never had a vet ask me about it or mention it to me. I would say not enforced here because I have had at least 1 dog almost the entire 12 years I have lived here and never been asked about a license for them.

Ours is $12 a year per dog or $65 for a kennel license. I have 6 dogs so I get the kennel license to save a few dollars. I don't think they go around looking for unlicensed dogs but if your dog gets out and you don't have a license, they will fine you. One of my coworker's dogs busted through her window and got out one day while she was at work. She was fined but I don't remember how much she had to pay. It irritates me every year that I pay it because my dogs never leave my yard without me and everyone in this town just turns their dogs loose and lets them run. I'm guessing if these people aren't responsible enough to know where their dogs are half the time, they're probably not spending money on licensing them either.

Vets don't care if your dog is licensed or not. We do sell them in the vet clinic I work at every year through the end of January but our vets couldn't care less if the dogs are licensed or not. I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere, but here we have to contact our Auditor's office for the initial license and then you can renew it every year by mailing it in to the auditor's office or wherever some of the local stores or vets are selling them. If you have a dog pound in your county, you could call and ask them where to get it. I will tell you though if you're getting it now, you may end up paying more. We have until January 31 every year to renew them and after that date, we have to pay more.

My dogs live in my house. I have a Yorkie and an English Setter. They are only taken outside on leashes (I don't have a fence). It irritates me to death the neighbors that just open their door and let their dogs run loose and they come and run all over our yard and pee on everything. I tell my dogs where they are allowed to pee and my dogs are usually taken to the middle of the grass and told to go potty and there is nothing to lift their leg to so they don't lift their leg as much. Meanwhile my neighbors dogs are killing all our plants.

I have a neighbor who has a "service" dog. yeah right! The dog has attacked me 3 times when I was in my yard without my big dog. My dog has fought him off a couple other times. I came home one day to find the neighbor's dog on my porch and when I tried to go in my house he charged at me growling. I went back to my car and was going to call the Police but he decided he was in trouble and went home instead. The guy doesn't believe me that his dog has attacked me. It is about a 120 lb black lab and if it bites me there is going to be some serious trouble with the guy. Sad part is... he has an invisible fence but won't put the collar on the dog because it hurts the dog when he gets shocked by it. He finally fenced in the back of his yard when the dog tried to charge me in my back yard and my husband told him he would call the police if something wasn't done about the dog trying to attack me. My husband put up the fence, the guy bought it. However, the dog just goes out the front yard and around the fence into my yard still. He tries to time the dog going out so it goes out after my dogs go out at 7am so there isn't conflicts, but it still keep peeing on my plants. It is a terrible situation.

I follow the law though and keep my dogs on leashes. All my neighbors know that if they were to see my dog(s) running loose they should alert me right away because somehow the dogs got loose, but it hasn't happened yet.

Do you license your dog? Yes.

How much does it cost? $10 for neutered dogs

What is the fine for not doing it? Not sure

Does your county seem to enforce them? Not on a regular basis. Maybe somewhere down the road. When my grandmother sold her house in Iowa, the county put a lien on her house for all the years she did not license her dog.

How often do you have to license them? 1 - 3 years with rabies vaccination.

I had never heard of licensing a dog before I read about it here. Thus my dogs are unlicensed. I looked it up and here its 5 dollars for a fixed dog and 100 for an intact dog per year! I don't believe its enforced.

I'm wondering if there is more than one licensing being discussed. I live in Tinley Park/Will County IL. My 3 get their Rabies vaccines every THREE years. When I purchase their vaccines I'm also purchasing the License. The Village is divided into 2 different counties Cook & Will so I'm always careful to make sure they are selling me a license for Will County. Our home is right on the dividing lines between counties.......literally my mailbox and the street are on the Cook County side and our home is on the Will County side of the dividing line. We have a problem all the time with all different types of taxes, school, even our license plates. "THEY" always want to change our information to COOK. But Will County is a lower tax so I'm always correcting the errors.

Here is the Will County statement regarding Rabies Vaccines and Licensing.

I just also looked at the Village of Tinley Park website and there is an additional tag (which I have never purchased) which requires the resident to present their rabies vaccine and costs $3.

But we have NEVER had anyone show up at our door looking for a dog license. What a waste of time and money to have anyone walking door to door to collect $3!

I think they're tracking the rabies vaccinations. The license tells them you vaccinated your dog so he's safe to be outside in public or the public is safe if bitten. I think it's a good thing.

Maybe not our little fur balls but what about those big dogs....

I have never licensed my dogs. We live outside of the city limits and it is not required so of course there is no fine. My dog is microchipped and wears an id collar with her name, my name, and phone number. I am not opposed to licensing. Just never really saw the need.

I contacted a lady I know who does animal rescue and works with various animal groups in my area. She also works at a local dog daycare/boarding facility as well. Anyway....

She said we don't have dog licensing in our county and that you are just required to keep your dogs rabies shot up to date and that is the only licensing type thing you need. Both my dogs and my cat are all up to date on rabies so I am good.

Glad to know I wasn't missing something. I had looked it up online and could find nothing about it so this is a relief.

So, no I don't license my dogs because it is not required, but I do keep their rabies shot current which is required.

$3 is very cheap!

In my county, dog license enforcement, door to door knocking, on average, raises over $200,000.00 additional money from licensing violations. That's a nice chunk of additional money to add to the yearly revenue, to help run our animal shelter. Personally, I'd much rather see them go after the violators than raise rates on law abiding citizens....but I'm grumpy today as i just received my new house tax assessment for this year in todays mail, which of course has increased yet again, just like i has every year I've lived here. If only wages increased proportionally to taxes.... Michigan is such a mess!