For over 90 years, the State of Michigan has provided only for the licensing of dogs. That goes back to the 1919 law that started licensing dogs in an attempt to provide "protection of live stock and poultry from damage by dogs".
The cat population in Michigan has really soared out of control in recent years, to the point where cats now represent between 40% and 60% of our Animal Control and Animal Shelter expenses in most locations . Some areas have already started requiring the licensing of cats by way of local ordinances.
The time has come for us cat owners to start paying our fair share of the the current overpopulation expenses. The problems of animal control have reached crisis proportions in some Michigan municipalities.
Our family includes FIVE CATS, all sterilized, indoor cats who are never going to cost our fellow taxpayers a nickel. We'd like to pretend that we don't have any responsibility to participate in sharing the costs of animal control by purchasing licenses for Tina, Heidi, Rudy, George and Gracie, but we know that's a lie.
It's been nice to have a free ride for all these years, but we know it isn't right and it isn't fair and it isn't helping to solve the problems of animal welfare in our community.
Progress in dealing humanely with the problems of Animal Control is only being made in communities where imaginative and caring people are cooperating with government, and where government is cooperating with insightful and progressive citizens and volunteers.
