only under duress.

it is ridiculously expensive.

 The annual cost of a County dog license is $20.00 - with a late fee of $20.00 if you don't obtain a license between December 1 and January 31 each year. 

The fee pays for operating the licensure program, and for animal protective services.

Question: has anyone in the Realneo audience had any interaction with the County animal warden or lost their dog and had it returned via its license?

Is the $20.00 annual fee reasonable?

 especially if you own more than one dog.

what is reasonable is the $8 you pay at Petco to have YOUR address and phone number printed on a tag. And you have the added bonus of the dog returned directly to YOU.

Why do we need to pay $20?

I had real interaction with the dog warden and I was definitely NOT impressed. (I don't know why the city fails).

WHY do we need to pay $20?

I put the Petco tag on my dogs and leave the county tags in their envelope in the filing cabinet....

  The license funds do go to maintaining a worthwhile database.  How can this database and the revenue collected be improved upon to better protect animals and people from getting hurt?  I would be interested to know the details of the data for this database and how stepped up enforcement of licensing might prevent the recent tragedies reported here with pit bull breeds and other potentially dangerous dog breeds.  Any dog has the potential to hurt someone, especially if it is being mistreated.
 

cuyahoga county provides a no charge license for service canines for life of the great k-9 and is transferable to another great k-9-

although under the americans disability act - no service canine has to be licensed by any enity-

all laws have to be modified under the ada-

police dogs and service k-9's are exempt from the poper scoper laws-

its a third degree felony to intimadate - threaten -harm a police dog or police horse or service k-9- (ever since police horses have been exempt from the poper scoper as we well know)

there are five types of service k-9's in the ohio law -seeing eye-sight impaired, deaf-hearing impaired, mobility-impaired, seizure, alert responese-

the ada supercedes all state laws and there is no limitation for service k-9's to help the challeanged person-

ones socalled pet canine is a service k-9 as long as the great k-9 is well behaved and well groomed - meaning as long as he or she doesn't eat the store food as one is shopping or isnt all muddy-

yogi yoga bear shop lifts as we are shopping and some times carries packaged food in his mouth out of the store not paid for - when i forget to check yogi- most of the stores know us and security etc. lets yogi get away as i return and pay - or if yogi isn't criminally in the mood i will give yogi a package of food and yogi will carry it out or around the store-

i'm attempting to have yogi be  a pick pocket of humans wallets valuables (kidding) and yogi refuses and says he isn't  a criminal and in other species world there is no laws because other species are far advanced-

titus is with us - there is no death just a change of worlds - titus  essence will incarnate into another canine or other species and you  laura - i know as yogi is all the past over before yogi k-9's in our home - his womenisims mannerisms are the same as the others great ones that passed over-

yogi and guy http://www.nationalwardogsmonument.org/

  Guy--all dogs are service dogs--so it would make sense for the licensing to be "free"* for life. 

The cost to maintain the database is minimal--tags, too.  It would make far more sense to require annual licensing without a fee than to pay the societal costs we pay in unwanted and mistreated animals and the consequences. 
 

 By now, we realize that suburbs and City of Cleveland residents are in the same boat, when it comes to poor administration from top level CUYAHOGA county representatives.  As a region, we tend to focus on the City of Cleveland as a barometer of our collective health, all the while, ignoring the REAL $$$ machinations that involve our suburban leadership, as well as the City of Cleveland.
 

A modest proposal: Let's start small and address one issue at a time to improve accountability.  I would like to see that Cuyahoga County manages our animal population and addresses the public safety concern caused by animals that are abused and then destroyed. 

We know that we have a database registry in place in Cuyahoga County (and some great IT staffers at Cuyahoga County).  We also know (unscientifically) by polling that most pet owners care enough about their dogs (and other animals) to register their pet with Cuyahoga County for a fee.  I believe that veterinarians also contribute to this database. 

How can we improve the system to help all residents and to protect the welfare of our pets?

  See Dbra's comments--
 

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/06/crisis_in_county_government_cu.html

Thanks Laura - I haven't had time to post on RealNEO because I have been dicking around with the auditor's office trying to straighten this stOOpid thing out.

sorry for the nasty attitude, but after spending $60 that I think is unnecessary and inappropriate I now have to deal with a less than efficient bureaucracy so I don't have to take a morning off from work to answer a court summons.

right now, I'm waiting for their dog licensing office to open at 11:30am ....

gotta love those Russos!

  A little gender humor :) I didn't know that chicks could do that!
 

I just spoke to someone at the number they gave me to call.

She at least asked for my case number, but then told me I have to call the number I called at 9am this morning (the xanax guy) because THEY DON'T KEEP THE RECORDS AT THE NUMBER THEY GAVE ON THE FRICKING NOTICE!

This is our county government at its best.

This is why I don't want to have to pay $20 per dog for some idiot that doesn't know what a database is to screw up and for some lazy secretary who can't take my info and call the stupid number herself AND GET IT STRAIGHTENED OUT!

this is why I throw the tags they send me into the filing cabinet and put Petco tags on my dogs (which cost $6.50 btw) because I don't trust these buffoons to handle a lost dog.

Now, I have to make a THIRD phone call back to Mr.Xanax and hope he is capable of performing a job..... but I have to wait a few hours because I'm ready to blow....

(ps - to explain - the county sent me a violation notice and a request for $120 because it says I didn't register my dogs -  The notice says if I don't respond in 10 days I go to court. MEANwhile i DID register my dogs in January - they took the money from my bank account and they sent me three tags. no name changes. no address changes. no reason whatsoever for them to screw this up.

I just spoke with a very nice, seemingly intelligent person.

The big error occurred because I entered my middle initial into the registration (because I applied online and needed to match my credit card info).

yes, thats correct, my entering a middle intitial caused the system to fail and erroneously create a new account. good god almighty, help us.... way to go Russo!

I am personally very much against licensing my dogs. I am not against animal wardens, city/county shelters or any of that but, I believe my money to support such services should come from some source other than an expensive license -- a source like my taxes. Isn't stewardship  of wild and domestic animals everyone's responsibilty not just those who choose to license their dogs? I put id tags with my name, phone number and address on my pets and I think these are much more effective anyway.

Most of all, I don't want my city government to know how many dogs I have, what breeds they are, etc. What if they decide to ban that breed? Or say I can only have one dog where I live? Unless my dogs are theatening the safety of others they are my business.

 i got snagged into the dog licensing *system*...

When I lived in Tremont, there used to be a guy we called "The Dog Nazi". This was before the Clark Field dog park so there were usually lots of people walking dogs around Tremont (not that they all throw their dogs into their car to visit the non-friendly to pedestrian traffic "dog park" now).

Anway, this guy rode a motorized chair and he was literally hell on wheels. He used to follow dog owners around with a battery operated bullhorn and harass them about dog poop. He was also vehemently against two dogs romping and playing together off-leash in the park - regardless of whether they were bothering anyone - and usually ignoring him standing there bellowing through his bull horn (even the dogs knew he was crazy). My baby angel used to love to play (off leash) with a boxer that lived across the street from the park. Our "illegal" behavior caught his notice and several times we were disrupted by his bull horn bellowing. I wish I were making this up.

The Dog Nazi also made it his daily business to observe all the dog owners in Tremont and he realized he never saw me picking up poop. Now, that was because my baby-angel (I only had one at the time) used to go over the wooded hill that runs along I-490. It was right by our house and there was a spot with no houses and he used to love to run down that hill and find a secret place to put his poopies. It was the perfect spot. The hill was way too steep for pedestrians and the only house that could be considered nearby was the house that used to throw their trash (in bright blue grocery bags) out their back door, over the hill, so I figured it was a safe spot. He was not permitted to go for his walk without doing his poopies on the hill, so The Dog Nazi never saw me picking up poop (though I did carry a plastic bag in case of "accidents").

The Dog Nazi decided to start following me on my dog walks to "catch" me in the act of not picking up poopie. At first he kept a discrete distance from me, but that eventually proved unsatisfying for him and before long he was not only following right behind me, he was also blasting me through his bull horn. Dog walks were turning into nightmares. Finally one day I snapped. I spun around, marched toward him and through clenched teeth told him to get the hell away from me and the next time he followed me I was going to break a limb from a tree and beat the crap out of him. 

Oddly enough, he did stop. I think he must have seen the crazed look in my eyes and realized I meant business. But the Dog Nazi didn't stop there. Apparently he was a frequent caller to the dog warden. One day they did a Lincoln Park "sweep", most likely to placate the old bastard, hoping he might stop calling. My unlicensed baby angel got tagged in the "sweep" and I got a big fat ticket. I had to pay a $100 fine and buy a license, with late penalty.

Once you pay a license, you can't just stop. They will issue a court citation like what they erroneously sent me last week. And of course I stupidly added our girls when they came along (actually we got our youngest from the APL and they require it as part of the fee). I guess I could call and say they are dead, but I don't have the heart to even let those words come from my lips. So, I'm stuck paying $60 a year to a crackpot agency that can't even handle the addition of a middle initial to a record.

The Dog Nazi sounds like a pain, but as far as a secret place for anyone's dog's poop, there just is no such thing. Here's why we should pick up and no, it is not because someone might step in it. If you're composting dog poop, follow these guidelines. You'll need a lot of diligence and a longstem thermometer to be sure you're cooking/killing the roundworms. In 2006 there were approximately 165,000 dogs in Cuyahoga County. That's a lot of poop.

 love ya Susan, but I disagree.

I guess I shouldn't have said "hill". Its more like a cliff, strewn with debris like old swingsets. Hillbilly style.

I've heard the dog poop eventually filters into the lake/river theory and I have to say the idea of depositing plastic baggies full of poop into a land fill rocks my world less. I chose my dog pooping into the good ole dirt instead. I don't know, maybe when we had torrential downpours some remaining element of the poop washed with the dirt into the ditch next to I-490, but I figure maybe it stood a chance of neutralizing all the cigarette butts, drink cups, burger wrappers and god knows what else found its way there.

if we have some kind of freak round worm outbreak, i'll maybe reconsider, but i care for my pets with regular health checks, so i don't think they are too much of a threat in that regard.

and there's no way in hell I'm ever going to try to dump dog poop into a toilet. uhuh.

no, in that location it was much more likely that one of the enormous trees that shield our homes from the ongoing din of the highway sucked it up by its roots. 

Per dog waste, this is what I would prefer: composting dog waste

Dog waste composting appears to be a feasible and highly functional method of managing large amounts of dog waste in an environmentally-friendly way. Dog waste composting reduces the amount of waste being sent to landfills (Sequi 1996), reduces the amount of methane being released into the atmosphere (Peigne & Girardin 2004), and can provide poor soil quality areas with an efficient soil amendment product (Albaladcjo ei ai 2000). It is estimated that from just this one dog run alone, over a ton of dog manure, over 136kg (300 lbs) of sawdust, and approximately 7000 plastic bags are diverted annually from the Montreal landfill site.
The composting program designed and tested during this study has now been fully implemented at the NDG dog park, and a total of nine compost bins are currently being used and maintained by the dog run committee. The resulting compost is sifted
and distributed to members of the dog run, and used in flowerpots in the dog run itself. This sustainable composting program allows individuals to benefit directly from their environmentally positive actions, and provides the park with an environmentally-friendly method for effective waste management. This pilot project has demonstrated that large-scale dog waste composting programs can be successfully implemented in urban settings and provide a means of partially reducing solid waste going to municipal landfill sites.

Dog waste composting appears to be feasible in Canada at least. 

The folks I spoke with here (Jan Rybka of Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District) just laughed at the suggestion. Oh well.

I am concerned about the quantity and the run off. Imagine how those fishes are coughing and coking when our storm drains are billowing all kinds of shit, grease, pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers into the rivers and streams... I have a problem with the plastic bags, too.

Just my two cents gals, I do believe that the plastic bags are more harmful than the dog poop.  I read somewhere that it takes many years for plastic to decay whereas the dog poop will dry up into a powdery substance and be gone in a short time and then  get washed away but if  disposed of in plastic bags, it remains pure stinking shit for a much longer period therefore compounding the threat to the environment.  The concern on both sides is understandable however, if picking the best of two evils, I'll deal with the dog poop.  Our landfills will be filled with plastic bags of dog poop holding moisture,  acting as a breeding lab for many more insects, worms, germs and bacteria that will eventually be released into the good earth anyway. 

Why should dog owners have to pay $20 license fee. This is all ridiculous and nonsense. A dog owner already has to buy several things like dog bed, crates, clothes and many more things. Instead of giving facilities why should we pay license fee.