| From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002: Dog & cat licensing compliance, costs, and effects Regulations of any kind seldom succeed unless a large majority of the people or institutions to be regulated are already voluntarily in compliance or willing to become compliant with relatively little nudging at the time that the regulations start to be enforced. If more than a small percentage object to a regulation enough to become scofflaws, the enforcement burden becomes overwhelming, and the regulation eventually tends to be ignored or repealed. Data gleaned from the ANIMAL PEOPLE files about dog and cat licensing indicates that it follows the trend. Because compliance with pet licensing tends to be less than a third of the 90% compliance rate that is usually the minimum needed for regulations to be within the reach of effective routine enforcement, there is no demonstrable relationship between the rates of licensing compliance claimed by animal control agencies in eight representative cities whose data ANIMAL PEOPLE examined and their rates of dog and cat killing per 1,000 human residents: Dog/cat licensing rates Killed/1,000 Tucson 57% 42.9 Chicago 25% 18.2 Philadelphia 25% 19.7 Seattle 25% 11.2 San Francisco 15% 2.6 Salt Lake City 13% 9.9 Fort Worth 10% 32.1 Milwaukee 10% 10.5 U.S. average 28% 16.8 [2004 note: Tucson and Chicago have approximately halved their killing rates in the five years since this data was gathered.] There is a demonstrable relationship between compliance and the cost of a license. The lowest license fees, on average, are charged in the Northeast, including the New England states, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and these states do appear to have the highest rates of licensing compliance. The next lowest fees are charged in the Midwest, with the next highest rates of compliance. The highest fees are charged in the West, whose compliance rate is only two-thirds of the rate in the Northeast. However, contrary to the findings of single-city surveys done mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, before the majority of owned dogs and cats in the U.S. were sterilized, charging markedly higher fees to license unaltered animals appears to create a disincentive to licensing more than to encourage more people to get their pets fixed. The lowest differential between the average cost of licensing intact versus altered dogs is in the Northeast, which as well as having the highest rate of licensing compliance also has a shelter killing rate of approximately half the national average. The widest differential is in the West, where shelter killing rates range from some of the lowest in the U.S., along the West Coast, to some of the highest, in the Southwest. The next widest differential is in the South, with the lowest licensing compliance and shelter killing rates tending to run between two and three times the U.S. norm. The Midwest, with a relatively low licensing differential and relatively high compliance, has shelter killing rates which mostly cluster just above the U.S. norms. West Midwest Northeast South Dog licence, intact: $28.21 $11.72 $ 9.72 $17.86 Dog license, altered: $10.50 $ 4.70 $ 4.58 $ 5.93 Dog licensing compliance: 24% 28% 32% 10% The dog licensing sample size per region was in the low dozens, roughly proportionate to human population distribution, and appeared to be representative of both urban and rural areas. Cat licensing is still so rare and compliance so low that the data is inherently suspect, coming from only about 25% as many jurisdictions as the dog licensing data. Nonetheless, it seems to follow the same general pattern--except that ANIMAL PEOPLE was unable to identify any jurisdiction in the Southern states which has tried to license cats. West Midwest Northeast South Cat license, intact: $20.00 $ 9.67 $ 8.20 n/a Cat license, altered: $ 7.00 $ 7.00 $ 4.60 n/a Cat licensing compliance: 15% 2% n/a n/a The oldest regulatory approach to pet overpopulation, directed at preventing public nuisances rather than at preventing animal suffering, was to limit the number of dogs and/or cats per home. This approach has recently been dusted off and pushed again here and there as a purported defense against backyard breeders and animal hoarders. There is no evidence that it has ever worked, or will work, since enforcing pet limits is as difficult as enforcing licensing. However, ANIMAL PEOPLE was able to identify the threshholds at which all but a few dog and cat keepers would comply with pet limits. The table below shows at left the percentages of pet keepers who keep common numbers of animals, and shows at right the percentages of animal control ordinances that set limits at each number. Limits restricting the number of dogs per household to four or fewer, and the number of cats per household to six or fewer, would appear to start out with high enough compliance that effective enforcement might be possible, at least in theory. Dogs/household Limits allow 62% / one 2% / one 25% / two 26% / two 7% / three 35% / three 6% / four+ 20% / four 4% / five 4% / six Cats/household Limits allow 48% / one n/a 28% / two 19% / two 11% / three 38% / three 13% / four+ 24% / four 8% / five 5% / six -- Merritt Clifton Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE P.O. Box 960 Clinton, WA 98236 Telephone: 360-579-2505 Fax: 360-579-2575 E-mail: anmlpepl@whidbey.com Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org [ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide, founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal protection organizations. 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