The Story With Nine Lives

Once again the cat bi-law is making headlines. On Tuesday it will meet a public hearing and afterwards will be debated by council. The proposal is to require all cats to be licensed and a limit on the amount allowed.

Just like the dog licenses, this is a pointless plan. It is next to impossible to enforce and will accomplish nothing except bring in money for fines. Quite frankly there are things that the government should not try to control.

If someone wants to own 10 cats, let them. As long as they are not neglected or abused then what is the big deal? Why would we then force cat owners to pay a fee to have their name included in some database of cat owners? The plan is simply a way to force people to pay out more money and get nothing back in return for it.

The only way to deal with the large amount of stray cats is to round them up as we do now. If no one claims them then they should be given to a family looking to adopt them. The license proposal will have no effect on dealing with the stray pets.

I hope this bi-law never sees the books, and would also like to see the same one for dogs scrapped. There is no need for political figures to regulate pet owners.

UPDATE 10/1/07 - The law will be debated again by counsel members tomorrow. More updates to follow.