Cat licensing may reduce strays
City councillor wants to know if fees could help offset humane society costs
KITCHENER — A city councillor thinks licensing cats might be the way to address surging numbers of unclaimed cats and rising payments to the Kitchener-Waterloo Humane Society.
“The humane society faces huge costs and huge workload because of cats and I want to ask why we don’t license cats and why we’ve never given attention to that,” Coun. Frank Etherington said at a recent committee meeting.
He floated the idea again a couple of weeks later when it came up at council, noting that the city spends a “massive amount of money” on caring for stray animals, the vast majority of which are cats.
Cat licences seem to be a growing trend. Calgary has been licensing cats for 10 years. Winnipeg, Edmonton and Montreal all license cats. In Ontario, cities that require cat licences include Stratford, Mississauga, London, Ottawa, Sudbury, Peterborough and Toronto. Guelph introduced a voluntary $25 cat licence this year, and plans to make it mandatory in 2018. Most cities charge about $20 for a spayed cat, $50 for non-neutered.
Cities that license cats say there are several benefits. The fees help pay the cost of the animal shelter, and the licence makes it much easier to reunite pets and owners. Some cities, such as Calgary, sweeten the deal by offering pet owners a discount card for local businesses.
Cats certainly make up the bulk of the work at the Kitchener-Waterloo humane society. It has 82 units in which to shelter cats; in a pinch, that can expand to 105 units. But earlier this month, the society was sheltering no fewer than 158 cats. Cats typically outnumber dogs at the shelter by at least two to one, staff say.
And very few of those cats are ever claimed by their owners. Just 11.8 per cent of cats are returned to their owners, compared to about 62 per cent of impounded dogs.
As well, the society has struggled financially for the past five years and recently negotiated a higher fee for service from Kitchener, which will almost double the amount it pays the society, from about $330,000 a year to $630,000.
The humane society says it’s in support of any measure that makes it easier to match lost pets
and owners, but says microchipping cats might be a better solution.
Inserting a small microchip with a unique identification number under a pet’s skin only has to be done once, whereas a pet licence has to be renewed every year, notes Kathy Innocente, the society’s director of operations.
“People have to put the tag on their cats, and they have to put a collar on them,” or else licensing does little to help, she said.
And, astonishingly, it’s not unheard of for people to mistakenly claim the wrong cat. One black, male neutered cat can look a lot like another black, male neutered cat, Innocente said. “We’ve actually had people claim the wrong animal. That’s why microchipping is different — there’s no denying it’s your cat.”
There are some potential problems with licensing, Innocente says. It would cost more to administer, and “enforcement would be a challenge,” she said.
As well, it’s not clear most cat owners would buy them — certainly most dog owners don’t. The society figures that only about one-third of dog owners license their pet. Dog licence sales have been dropping, even after the society stepped up sales efforts.
Kitchener hasn’t studied the pros and cons of cat licensing in any depth. “It comes up from time to time,” said Gloria MacNeil, Kitchener’s director of bylaw enforcement. “I haven’t researched the benefits or costs of doing it, because I haven’t been given any direction from council.”
If the city were to pursue it, there would need to be extensive public consultation, similar to what the city did when it looked at allowing backyard chickens, MacNeil said. “Obviously we would have to have several public meetings and get public input … Generally, when you’re talking about licensing of animals, (public reaction) is usually fairly negative.”
Nonetheless, Etherington thinks it’s an idea that might be wroth pursuing, though he hasn’t put forward a council motion to that effect.
“I’m shocked to see this amount of money spent on the needs of animals,” he said when he raised the issue. “Something I think is dreadfully wrong with our financial priorities,” given that council regularly wrestles with how to help low-income residents cope with steep increases in utility and other bills, he said.
“As a humane society we are all for any initiatives that return pets to their owners. Our goal at the humane society is obviously to get these animals home,” Innocente said.
The society is holding a clinic next month where people can microchip their pet or get them vaccinated for rabies for $20, or do both for $30. The clinic is Nov. 18, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Humane Society, 250 Riverbend Dr., Kitchener. Pets must be at least three months old; dogs must be leashed and cats must be in a carrier.