The limit on the number of dogs as pets in Windsor may increase from two to three this week.
If council takes the public safety standing committee’s recommendation to increase the limit at Tuesday’s meeting, a lot of local dog owners will be very happy, according to Windsor-Essex County Humane Society director Melanie Coulter.
“We are seeing a lot of demand for people who would like to have three dogs and we’ve had to turn people away because we can’t legally adopt to someone without selling them a license and we can’t legally sell them a license for a third dog,” said Coulter. “We’ve been hearing a lot about this issue and people who are pretty happy that the limit might be up in Windsor.”
Windsor’s current city bylaw imposed the restriction in 1995. In surrounding communities, such as LaSalle and Tecumseh, residents are allowed to own three dogs, with Essex just recently increasing their limit from two to three as well.
“By creating more homes, I think there’s not really a downside to that,” said Coulter. “People can be irresponsible with one dog just as easily as they can be irresponsible with three, so it’s not so much about numbers. It’s about how responsible people are being.”
Another issue being brought to council is the renewal of the cat voucher program, said Coulter. Last year, council approved the program, which provided 1,000 low income residents vouchers in the amount of $75 to spay or neuter their cats, as well as to residents wanting to trap, neuter and return feral cats in the city.
The vouchers were quickly scooped up, said Coulter, but not all were redeemed, leaving $25,000 in the program.
“That shouldn’t be taken as an indication that the vouchers weren’t needed or in demand because the vouchers were claimed very, very quickly – they were given away within days—but the challenge was it was the first year so there was a little bit of a learning process in setting it up,” said Coulter. “Unfortunately there were more than we had hoped not redeemed but we hope that was just first-year kinks.”
Coulter said in the city’s draft budget for 2013, $50,000 has been allotted for the voucher program.
“So they reduced it from $75,000 from last year,” said Coulter. She said what the public safety standing committee is recommending and what the humane society is seeking is the $25,000 leftover from last year in addition to this year’s $50,000 to go towards the voucher program, for a total of $75,000 this year.
She said this would allow the city to offer 1,000 vouchers again this year.
“The voucher program is a huge issue and we were so pleased that council approved it last year. It was a great measure to help address the cat overpopulation in our community,” said Coulter. “The humane society has already done our part by building a low-cost spay/neuter clinic to provide more access to spay/neuter, but we can’t do it alone. Solving a community-wide issue takes community-wide solutions and with the city stepping forward with the voucher program, that added to what our clinic is able to do and we’ve been seeing a difference.”
Coulter said there was a drop in the humane society’s cat intake by more than 1,000 last year, some of which can be attributed to the voucher program.
She said the voucher program helps control the cat population, which then reduces the number of cats the humane society has to euthanize.
“Our biggest priority is the cats that come in that are friendly and healthy and adoptable and just can’t find homes because there aren’t homes for all of them,” said Coulter. “So we want to get to a point where we never have to put down a healthy cat again, and we’re moving that way.”
Residents like Denis Lanctot know first-hand the heartbreak caused by tough choices the humane society has to make in putting down cats due to overpopulation.
Lanctot has spayed over 30 cats out of his own pocket over the past eight years and often feeds stray cats in his neighbourhood. One stray cat, which he had taken into his home and named Spot, gave birth to six kittens. Since Windsor residents are only allowed to own four cats, he brought the kittens to the humane society, and left Spot, their mother, with them. He said they were put down a short while later.
“I loved that cat. She was so gentle and beautiful. I used to comb her hair every day,” said Lanctot. “My wife cried all day and I cried for a couple of hours myself. We were moping around for days, with lumps in our throats and we couldn’t eat or anything. We were so upset.”
Lanctot said he hopes the voucher program will be renewed this year so that he can take advantage of it and spay more stray cats in his area to help control the cat population. He said he has spent thousands of dollars feeding and taking care of feral cats in his neighbourhood and has seen an increase in strays in recent years, adding he even saw someone drive down his street and throw a cat out the window of their car.
“People like them so much when they’re kittens but once they get older, they don’t want them anymore,” said Lanctot. “I feel bad. These are God’s creatures. They didn’t ask to be born. It’s our job to protect them.”
Coulter said she is optimistic both issues – changing the bylaw limiting the number of dogs and the renewal of the cat voucher program – will be passed by council Tuesday.
“It passed unanimously in the standing committee and both of these items are on the consent agenda, so if it stays there, it would be passed,” said Coulter.
