Mat-Su residents are no longer required to buy dog and cat licenses

What you need to know:

• Dog and cat owners in Mat-Su are no longer required to purchase borough animal licenses. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly eliminated the rule on Tuesday. Licensing rules for dog kennels and catteries remain in place. The update does not affect pet license requirements for residents of Houston, Wasilla and Palmer.
• Assembly members said they wanted to remove the rule because it is rarely enforced and because an estimated 30,000 borough dog and cat owners are unaware of it. The elimination of the license requirement may reduce shelter revenue by thousands of dollars annually, according to Chris Loscar, the borough’s animal shelter director.
• The license change was part of a series of updates to animal care regulations made Tuesday, including an extension to the allowed timeframe for surrendering found animals to the shelter and a reduction of the holding period for animals surrendered to the shelter after the death of an owner.

PALMER – Dog and cat owners in Mat-Su are no longer required to purchase borough animal licenses – a rule that a pair of borough assembly members say many residents didn't know about.

The regulation was removed from borough law Tuesday through a unanimous vote of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly. Licensing rules for dog kennels and catteries remain in place. Residents who purchased licenses before the change will not receive refunds, borough officials said.

The change is effective immediately, according to the ordinance. It was passed as part of a series of updates to the borough's animal laws, which include extending the allowable timeframe for surrendering found animals to the shelter.

The decades-old ordinance required all residents to license their cats and dogs, with registration fees ranging from $15 to $60, depending on the length of the license and whether the animal was spayed or neutered.

The change does not impact Palmer, Wasilla and Houston laws which require residents to buy city-issued dog and cat licenses, with fees ranging from $10 to $30, depending on the location.

The update was proposed because the license requirement is not regularly enforced and because most residents are unaware of the rule, said Assembly member Bill Gamble, who co-sponsored the legislation with Assembly member Rob Yundt.

Yundt said he owns two unlicensed dogs and did not know registration was required until a constituent brought the issue to his attention. He estimated that as many as 30,000 borough residents own unlicensed pets.

“This seems to me like we’ve got to have 20,000 to 30,000 criminals in the Mat-Su Borough,” Yundt said during Tuesday’s Assembly meeting. “There are tens of thousands of people with pets that I guarantee you don’t have their animals registered.”

The shelter issues about 1,500 dog and cat licenses each year, Borough Animal Care and Regulation Director Chris Loscar said during Tuesday's meeting. About 1% of those are proactively requested by borough residents; the remainder are purchased when owners visit the shelter to pick up lost pets or when an animal is first adopted, he said.

Eliminating the borough animal license requirement could reduce shelter revenue by thousands of dollars each year, Loscar said in an interview Tuesday. The Assembly did not request details on how the change will affect the shelter's budget, he said.

Details on the total number of individual dog and cat licenses issued by the borough are not available because a 2018 data breach wiped out the shelter's registration logs, he said.

The pet registration change is the second such update to borough-issued licenses this year. A law passed by the Assembly in April repealed a borough business license requirement.  

Tuesday’s animal ordinance update also includes a measure giving anyone who finds an animal in Mat-Su 24 hours to surrender it to the shelter. Previously, the ordinance required such surrenders to be made immediately.

That change is intended to give individuals and local rescue groups more time to reunite found animals with their owners, borough officials said. It also eases the burden on after-hours shelter staff, they said. The update follows a decision by borough officials earlier this year to enforce the longstanding law requiring that animals be brought to the shelter rather than given to local rescue groups.

Tuesday’s regulation updates also reduce the amount of time an animal placed in the shelter after the death of its owner must remain in the system before becoming available for adoption. The previous policy required these animals to remain in the shelter for about two months; the change reduces that period to 15 days.

-- Amy Bushatz can be contacted at abushatz@matsusentinel.com.

This story was updated on Aug. 23 to note that refunds will not be given for licenses issued before the Aug. 20 change.