During Monday night's council meeting, members of Penhold Town Council discussed the motion and possibility of beginning a Pet Compliance.
Currently within the town of Penhold, dogs and cats are required to be licensed and contained within their owner’s property but recently Penhold residents have been extra vocal about the growing number of roaming animals, especially cats.
CAO Rick Binnendyk is hoping a Pet Compliance Census will help track and hold pet owner’s responsible for their pets going forward.
“It’s a very effective campaign and a tactical way to get at the problem,” Binnendyk opened his motion with support for the campaign.
The campaign would involve town enforcement actively going around and recording the numbers and information of animals within the house and those found not in compliance with the current licensing laws would be fined.
Binnendyk is confident that the campaign, which is estimated to cost $11,000 and is predicted to bring in an additional $11,000 for the Town, would help when it comes to infractions and stray animals in the future.
“The whole thing needs to sustain itself; it shouldn’t be a cost to every single tax payer in town. The people who have pets and pay for licenses should fund that, it shouldn’t fall back on everyone,” said Walsh. “He seems to think we can wash this, I don’t know that. If we spend this kind of money it needs to be a budgeted item. We have a bylaw, enforce the bylaw.”
“I feel very confident that we will not see much taxpayer money going towards this,” Binnendyk said. “It would be one of the most effective projects we’ve done and it was last time.”
“Twelve years ago the town did a similar campaign and it brought compliance for a few years but as the years have went on compliance has dwindled,” Binnendyk added that since the town has begun its recent promotion of pet licenses, 15 more dogs and six more cats have been added to Town’s pet registry.
Regardless of the increase in licensed pets in town, Mayor Yargeau, Councillor Walsh and Councillor Muller are not convinced the campaign is the answer for the current problem of wandering animals.
“Getting a license is all fine and dandy but that’s not solving the issues that people are complaining about on Facebook. A pet is licensed but it’s still roaming all over town, what have we accomplished? How do we solve that?” Muller questioned. “The frustration is not with responsible owners that keep their pet contained within their property, it is with the irresponsible ones.”
“If you’re a responsible pet owner and keep your pet in or on your property I honestly don’t care if it registered,” said Mayor Yargeau in agreement. “I’d rather spend $11,000 on picking up those animals rather than enforcement and then maybe owners will get a hint. The problem is not people registering or not registering, the problem is with roaming animals.”
Currently stray animals are turned over to a private contractor Klassic Kennels based near Blackfalds, to be held for a period of time before being evaluated and hopefully placed for adoption.
Mayor Yargeau pointed out that the contractor and the town should be trying to get the animals that are picked up back to the original owner and work with the town so that the owner can be charged and held responsible if necessary but he has his doubts the current contractor is doing so.
“I’d be shocked if they picked up any animal here in the last six months. I don’t think they’re picking up anything.”
He added that although the town receives statements from them for services, detailed reports are never provided to the town.
“At last meeting we asked for more enforcement to be done and I don’t think this is the enforcement we’re looking for,” Mayor Yargeau concluded before the motion passed as accepted as information.
With the motion not being passed, members of council added that, going forward, there needs to be an improvement in communication with the current contractor and detailed reports need to be provided so the council and the community can be more aware of what is being done and where money is going.
Council would also like to see better communication with the public regarding stray and picked up animals. If animals are picked up by the contractor or bylaw they would like to see them published for the public to be identified either by the owner’s or my neighbours of the pets.
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