What Does a Dog Owner Need to Know About the Law?
This is a transcript of a podcast posted June 18, 2006.
 We’re speaking with Mary Randolph, the author of Every Dog’s Legal Guide: A Must-Have Book for Your Owner.
NOLO: Mary, considering that dogs have been around for thousands of years, why is it necessary to license them, and what’s going to happen to a dog owner who doesn’t license a dog?
MARY RANDOLPH: Well, the theory behind licensing is that cities want to keep track of dogs. They want to know how many dogs they have, they want to get a little money from the dog owners to go towards the cost that a city incurs when it’s taking care of the dog population -- they have to have animal control officers, they have noise ordinances. So, that’s the idea behind it; it’s just that having a dog is a bit of a privilege, it’s not just a right, and you have to pay a little fee for it.
But no one comes around, obviously, knocking on doors, checking to see if your dog has a tag. You can get into trouble if your dog gets picked up.
If your dog is running loose and the animal control people pick it up, you’re much more likely to get the dog back quickly and safely if you’ve got a license for the dog, because they can trace you right away, and they can contact you. If the dog doesn’t have an identifying tag, you might not get the dog back. In some places, they have rules that they keep licensed dogs longer on the theory that they are not strays; they have an owner out there looking for them.
They also use licenses to keep track of rabies vaccinations, because you’re required to have a rabies vaccination, and in some places, some other vaccinations as well, so that usually goes along with the licensing requirement.
|
