City Announces Crack-Down on Dead-Beat Pet Owners

Dead-beat pet owners who refuse to pay the city's pet licensing fees are about to have a rude awakening: Seattle Animal Shelter has announced it's going to start actively policing city parks for unlicensed pets and issuing $125 tickets.

On the one hand, it's another sign of the city's apparent desire to mollycoddle the citizenry by regulating every aspect of our lives; on the other, pet registration fees help fund the Seattle Animal Shelter, which helps deserving pets find good homes.

Licensing (info available online) costs $40 per year per dog (or $20 if spayed or neutered) and $25 per year per cat ($15 if spayed or neutered). According to The Seattle Times, the additional fees could decrease the shelter's reliance on the city's general fund for funding: "The shelter found out from a 2001 American Veterinary Medical Association survey that 33,000 of 125,000 dogs in Seattle are licensed, and 29,000 of 250,000 cats." The additional revenue generated from even a portion of those currently unregistered pets getting registered would form a substantial portion of the shelter's $3.1 million budget.