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Responding to the Data: <br />Constructing successful pet friendly ordinances <br />Pet licensing was established to protect the public from disease <br />free-roaming and dangerous dogs at a time when rabies was a comm <br />public health threat. The goal was to round up as many dogs as p <br />a given community and inoculate them. <br />During the last 60 years or more, the practice of linking rabies <br />vaccination to dog licensing became a widely accepted method for <br />ing that goal. But in the last few decades, pet ordinances expan <br />issues of public health, safety and livestock protection. TodayÈ <br />include measures to make pet owners more responsible and humane, <br />take aim at reducing surplus shelter animals and neighborhood nu <br />such as roaming cats and noisy dogs. <br />Many of these newer provisions attempt to <br />avoid problems by broadly defining or restricting <br />the conditions under which people can own or <br />keep pets. As a result, there are now pet limits to <br />prevent people from keeping more than a certain <br />number of pets; bans against owning specific <br />breeds; extra licensing requirements for people <br />whose pets have litters; and higher license fees for <br />intact dogs and cats than for neutered ones. <br />Yet despite these and numerous other <br />amendments put forth by well-meaning lawmakers, <br />citizens and activist groups; and despite a dramatic <br />1 <br />increase in household petsand the amount of <br />money their owners are willing to spend on them,2 only about 30% of pets <br />targeted by these ordinances are ever licensed.3 Attempts to license the <br />remaining 70% have focused on the threat of enforcing greater re <br />and heavier penalties. These are empty threats, however, because <br />for increased enforcement usually does not exist. So while this <br />scare a few owners into grudging compliance, it also causes a co <br />ding measure of cooperation and support to be lost from the grou <br />was already compliant. <br />If the goal is to improve compliance levels, itÈs crucial to und <br />stand why the majority of American pet owners (and not just the <br />sible ones) resist even the most basic pet licensing requirement <br />is said and done, pet license compliance levels reflect communit <br />for animal control services, so if people choose not to license, <br />because they do not recognize animal control services as necessa <br />beneficial or do not consider that animal control officials supp <br />responsible pet owners in the community. <br />Even though the majority of households keep pets today 4, and <br />[ 6 ] <br />© National Animal Interest Alliance, March 2005 <br /> <br />