WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) -- The City of Wausau made a change that will let households have more pets under certain conditions. The common council approved a Pet Fancier Permit, which will allow residents to have more than the present limit of two dogs and three cats.
Council Member Lisa Rasmussen says there are limits. “The maximum number of pets in a house is still five, but without a pet fancier permit, you can have up to two dogs and three cats. The permit allows you to get to five by another means, so you could have three dogs and two cats, or you could have four dogs and one cat. It does limit the maximum type of any one animal to four.”
Rasmussen says she received an email recently highlighting one problem caused by the original pet control ordinance. It came from a woman who wanted to move to Wausau, but had to live elsewhere because she has too many dogs. “She could not move to Wausau and live close to her job because we don’t allow three dogs, and so she became a resident of one of the suburbs because they do, and so it’s difficult for me to understand how we could be a pet unfriendly community to the point where new residents are not locating to our community just because they have an extra pet, even though they haven’t created an issue for anyone.”
The current rules were put into action almost two years ago when the city started to require vaccinations and registrations, with veterinarian data going to Pet Data, which is the contractor for managing license and vaccination information for Wausau and Weston. Rasmussen says the Pet Data system is working well. “Through the Pet Data system, we get a continuous flow of rabies vaccination data from veterinarians, and when we get that data, we’re immediately able to identify who vaccinated a pet but did not license them. We can match that against our database, and then our humane officer can make contact with those households and either inform them that they now need to license the pet, or of there’s an issue with non compliance, then they can enforce on that right away.”
The budget for the animal control program is likely to be in the red. Rasmussen says that’s a combination of more costs at the Humane Society shelter for contracted services and because there are still some Wausau residents with unlicensed pets. “Right now, with the cost of the cat contract at the Humane Society, and the cost of what some of our impound fees on our held-for-cause project, it’s possible animal control will be over budget, but it’s still a moving target as to how far, and what the remedy will be.”
The animal control budget is supposed to be self-sustaining by the fees collected.