The city expects cost-savings with changes to dog licensing that have been unanimously approved by city council.

Acting bylaw services manager Tammy Blundell says the fee for licenses won’t change – staying at $30 for dogs that are spayed or neutered and $65 for dogs that are not – but people who are late to buy a dog license will be charged a flat penalty of $32.50. The city also fines dog owners $100 per offense when a dog is found to be without a license,

Blundell says the city will also be rolling out online software for dog owners to renew their licenses and won’t do renewals through third-parties like pet stores. She says the cost to upgrade that software will be $55,000.

“Of course the return on investment, it’ll help with the postal charge of having to renew those licenses on and on, and mailing out the tags, not having to do that. Our return on investment for that would be 5 to 7 years,” Blundell says.

“Some of the benefits that will add to this are convenience to dog owners for being able to renew their licenses. The reduced costs of avoiding to have to mail out those tags, as well as reduced work load on (bylaw) officers and clerks, and then we can use their resources elsewhere.”

Blundell says there are just under 8,000 dogs in Kamloops and says the city is moving from re-issuing licenses each year to issuing a perpetual dog tag instead, meaning tags will only be issued for replacements or for new licenses.

“We purchase the dog tags in Q4 of every year, so that’s coming up. But last year for 8,000 tags it cost $7,100 dollars. So every year, if we were to go to a perpetual license each year, that amount will decrease so there’s another cost-saving to the city.”

The changes will come into effect in 2021, as Blundell says the city is taking 2020 to educate dog owners about the coming changes.