Friday, June 1 is the deadline to get a new dog license without facing a $10 late fee. All dogs older than six months require a license to be renewed annually.
A license costs $12 for dogs that are not spayed or neutered, and $8 for dogs that are. If your dog is new to Southborough, you’ll need to provide a copy of the vet certificate showing that your dog has been spayed or neutered. Payment is by cash or check only.
To get a license, stop by the Town Clerk’s office at the Town House. You can also apply by mail. Either way you’ll need to provide a record of your dog’s most-recent rabies vaccination.
For more information, visit the Town Clerk’s website.
(Photo posted to Flickr by left-hand)
I’ve thought long and hard and I really can’t come up with any GOOD reason that we need to license our dogs, particularly annually. Anybody really know? If your answer has to do with rabies, please explain what licensing accomplishes?
The best reason to get your dog licensed is so that if the dog escapes and bites someone, then (presuming that it has a collar on) there is an easy way to access the record to determine what the current rabies vaccination status is (and also making it easier for the animal control officer to return your pet to you).
Let me give you a real world example. Last weekend I was contacted by a co-worker who was involved in a dog bite situation. The dog was not licensed and was not up to date on rabies. Because of this, the dog is now in quarantine (10 days in Massachusetts) and the person whom the dog bit has to get post-exposure rabies shots. That is a lot of lost time and money for the simple task of not paying an $8-12/year fee.
Frankly if a pet owner can’t keep their vaccines up to date then they probably don’t deserve to be pet owners, but at least licensing is one small way to make sure that the most important vaccine, rabies, is kept up to date.
Now if you really want to debate fees and taxes in Massachusetts…what is the point of the vehicle excise tax?
I was bit by a licensed dog once and the owner was not around. The license allowed me to call the town and confirm that he had all shots. I was told by my doctor that if I could not confirm that the dog did have it’s rabies shots that I should go to the hospital and start the rabies regiment within one hour of getting bit. Luckely the dog did have it’s shots.
Rabies is a fatal disease and there is no known cases of a human surviving rabies once they have gotten it. Pretty strong reason for the licensing process. My questing is why not cats as well, they bit too.
I’m really not trying to say it’s just another tax, I’m legitimately curious what the policy creators were thinking. The real policy just simply needs to be that it is the law to have the rabies tag on all dogs at all times. I just don’t see how licensing does anything to get people to get rabies shots, if they aren’t going to get the shot then they aren’t going to get the license either.
The point of the vehicle excise tax is an easy way to tax the wealthy.