Seminole residents no longer have to license their pets with the county after commissioners without comment on Tuesday did away with the decades-old requirement.
Since the mid-1970s, Seminole has mandated that owners of dogs, cats and ferrets register their animals annually to encourage spaying and neutering, reduce rabies infections and reunite owners with their lost pets.
“The program was a very good program decades ago before the use of [animal] microchips,” said Alan Harris, chief administrator for Seminole’s office of emergency management, which oversees the county’s animal services division.
The county has since worked with area veterinarians who notify county officials of animal vaccinations.
“We get rabies and vaccination shots inputted directly into our system,” Harris said during discussion. “We’ve used the [licensing] program to reunite individuals when there was a lost or stray animal. Now we have found better ways to do that with the introduction of social media.”
The board then unanimously approved a motion by Commissioner Lee Constantine to do away with the old licensing ordinance.
Commissioner Jay Zembower first suggested eliminating the license and tag program in April after learning from county data that just under 7% of the estimated 200,000 pet owners in Seminole bother to obtain licenses for their animals.
He pointed out that most pet owners have inexpensive microchips inserted under an animal’s skin that can be read through a handheld scanning device, which reveals the pet’s information. The licensing and tag program, therefore, is outdated and an unnecessary burden on pet owners, Zembower said.
The American Veterinary Medical Association strongly encourages pet owners to microchip their pets.
Zembower did not attend Tuesday’s meeting because of a pre-planned trip with family, officials said.
Seminole charged $5 for a license for an animal that was spayed or neutered and $25 for non-sterilized animals. Owners had to show proof that their pets had received rabies vaccination when applying for the licenses. The licenses had to be renewed annually.
The county had recently relied on volunteers to process the licenses after ending a contract with a company.
In 2021, 12,649 Seminole residents licensed their pets. That was about 289 more than the previous year. County officials cited population growth and the COVID-19 pandemic — which resulted in people staying at home and obtaining animals to keep them company — as the cause of the rise.
Orange County did away with its pet licensing and tag mandate in 2005.
The elimination of the program was part of a recent effort by Seminole leaders to update its animal regulations.
In April, commissioners unanimously approved a tougher animal control ordinance that limited the number of dogs to six and cats to eight that a resident can have in their homes in urban areas as a way to prevent animal hoarding and backyard breeding.
Otherwise, the pet owner would have to obtain a non-commercial kennel license from the county.
Seminole also recently launched a new initiative to trap, neuter, vaccinate and release feral or homeless cats caught in neighborhoods in an effort to reduce the growing number of stray felines roaming neighborhoods. The sterilized cat, in effect, would return to its colony. It will no longer be able to reproduce and the hope is eventually the colony would diminish.
mcomas@orlandosentinel.com
