ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
There are many stray animals wandering throughout Liberal and the City of Liberal recently began an effort to help with just that.
Starting at the beginning of the month, the city’s new pet registration ordinance went into effect, and city officials say the work has been a long time coming.
“I remember it coming before the Liberal City Commission in the summer of 2024, and that's when it all started being formulated and discussed in a public setting,” Interim City Manager Scarlette Diseker said. “The Animal Control Ordinance was passed at the commission's April 23, 2024 meeting and discussed again at the commission's May 14, 2024 meeting, with the overall consensus being the commission wishing to keep moving forward with the pet licensing project. We'd had several people attending meetings and expressing concern over stray dogs, which has been a problem in Liberal for quite some time now, and the commission wanted to do something to combat the problem while helping the Liberal Animal Shelter staff, who had also expressed some concern about the issue.”
“And we did do a series of public surveys that were put out into the community to engage with the public's overall perception of the problem – i.e., did we feel like this was something that needed to be addressed and if so, what did people want to see?” Chief Communications Officer Keeley Moree added. “The most overwhelming response we got from people was the desire to see irresponsible pet owners held accountable, but from a legal standpoint, that's rather difficult to do if you can't fully trace back the ownership of an animal. This process really helped us align a lot of our court and police work as well as what goes on at the Liberal Animal Shelter in order to make sure everyone's working together to solve what's going on.”
Diseker and Moree said there were multiple factors that made the City of Liberal take more concrete action with the issue.
“For me personally, I had sat through multiple Liberal City Commission meetings where citizens had come before the commission and shared their concerns about this issue such as not being able to go for walks in their area of town, or how their children couldn't go to a nearby park and have fun,” Diseker said. “It got to the point where it became a big enough issue that we did feel we needed to set in motion a bit of law and order and figure out a solution. This registration method is common in many other cities our size, and I know there are other communities in Southwest Kansas that have already implemented similar guidelines. For me, it was about watching the commission listen to these concerns and listen to Tara [Logan] from the shelter, and like I said, it ultimately just reached the point where this needed to be put in place and a process for registering pets so they can be better identified. And to piggyback on that a bit, one of the major goals of the current Liberal City Commission is they want Liberal to grow. They've been very forward-thinking in terms of housing and economic development, and they want to see Liberal turn into a thriving community where people raise their families and own businesses. It's also important for Liberal to be seen as attractively as possible from a safety standpoint, and if we have a bunch of stray animals running around and all of that, that's not really conducive to those goals, and that's a disservice to the public.”
“And it's also definitely a public safety issue, especially since there have been multiple bite cases to be dealt with. Often, we don't know who that animal belongs to or have any information on their current vaccination status,” Moree added. “I've personally been bitten by a stray dog, and during that whole process, it was never determined whether or not that dog had actually had a rabies vaccination. That animal was also never able to be traced back to any owner. In those situations, residents are on their own in terms of any medical bills and any additional immunizations, and being a bit victim is something none of our residents should ever have to go through.”
Moree and Diseker then went into more detail of how the registration process will work.
“Registration officially began Jan. 1, and pet owners must have information from their veterinarian showing whether their animal is spayed or neutered as well as any current vaccination records. All of that needs to be done annually anyway, which is why we're making registration an annual situation,” Moree said. “They'll bring that information, as well as a recent photo of the animal (to help with identification), and then register through the City of Liberal Web site, cityofliberal.org, and that's also where they pay. We'll make sure everything is processed correctly, and then Liberal Animal Shelter will send out the individual tag for the animal to wear at all times. And ultimately, what we want to be able to do is help curb the stray animal population and the roaming population. There are multiple costs to operating the animal shelter, and when it has a lot of stray animals, that includes food, vaccinations and other medical needs, and all of that has a price tag. If we can work through this process in order to be able to reduce the number of animals that are out and breeding, that helps a lot. There have been multiple times when the shelter simply can't take anymore animals in because they have no room, and that can cause issues for someone who's lost their pet, because that means the staff can't bring it in, secure it and contact you to let you know they found it.”
“I actually went through the process myself recently, it's very easy and straightforward, and my vet was very helpful with the information I needed for my dog. All of the instructions were very easy to follow, and it took me less than 10 minutes,” Diseker added. “My dog stays mainly in the house and only goes outside to go to the bathroom, and while I'm not necessarily worried about her getting out, there's always the chance for a natural disaster or some other situation where your pet goes missing, and you obviously want to get them back as quickly as possible. I see this as another safeguard that, at the very least, provides another resource for people to find their lost animal(s) if something unexpected happens. I don't want people to think of this as a punishment, I want them to think of this as another layer of protection for them and their animal(s).”
Moree and Diseker said in the long run, the process is a community-wide effort.
“This process works when everyone works together. I understand there are people who don't want to register their pets and/or don't understand why it's necessary, but there are a lot of benefits to doing so,” Moree said. “Ultimately, what we're looking for is being able to reduce the stray animal population so responsible pet owners can take their pets on a neighborhood walk without fear of being attacked. We want people to understand it's actually a lot less costly to just register your pet than redeem your pet if something happens. It's also about helping our Animal Control officers in their daily work, because they only want what's best for the animals they end up picking up. And I know there are people who will refuse to register their pets because they think their pet will never go missing, but you just never know. Another part of this policy that could have an effect is it might cause those irresponsible pet owners to think twice about letting their pet(s) just roam free during the day, because there are penalties involved. I know this has been a rather polarizing topic, but it's our job to encourage public safety and responsible pet ownership, and there are many people in town we've heard from about this. The registration fee for an animal that's spayed or neutered is $10 per year, and $25 per year for animals not spayed or neutered. There is also a late fee of $5 if an animal isn't registered by Jan. 31.”
“And like I said earlier, it's another layer of protection for you and your pets. Having this registration process available will actually allow us to open our dog park – and maybe one or two more – because we want everyone to have fun and be safe in that type of environment,” Diseker added. “If everyone would just do their part, which does not require a lot of time or effort at all, it would be great. This would also help prevent the need for any major expansion to the shelter – the last time we had to do a shelter expansion, it was around $500,000, and every time I visit, they are basically at capacity, so if everyone would just do their part, it would be amazing, because this truly is a community effort. We want to make sure we have a good database for the animals in the community, and the sooner that's done, the better, because that means we can have all of those files updated and current, and we're also not bombarding our local veterinarians with those requests at the end of the month. Getting all of that done and marking it off the to-do list would be good, and that way you KNOW everything's ready to go. We will be looking at the overall compliance as time goes on and look at the overall results, and at the end of 2025, we'll look at everything and see if there are any adjustments needing to be made, because we are flexible in that regard.”
Moree also offered praise for the work done by the Liberal Animal Shelter staff.
“I want to thank all of our staff at the Liberal Animal Shelter, they're truly amazing people. I don't think people fully realize just what a difficult job that is and what all they have to deal with on a daily basis,” Moree said. “I'm proud of all the work they do, and I hope this ordinance will help ease some of the burden on them as far as the stray population and everything else.”
I think the registration system is a great idea and long overdue. However.......I dont like the idea of forcing people to pay any amount of money whatsoever to do so. I personally have no problem registering any of my animals but I do have a giant problem with being forced to pay a fee in doing so.