City votes to amend Animal Control Bylaw

At a Regular City Council meeting earlier this month, Council amended the City’s Animal Care and Control Bylaw to allow for more flexibility for people who own multiple animals within Cold Lake.

Under the previous rules, animal owners were restricted to five animals, where the totals of either dogs or cats could not exceed three and the total number of rabbits could not exceed two. It was decided that while the total number of animals would remain the same at five per household, further restrictions limiting the number of a certain type of animal further was not needed.

The bylaw now allows for residents to own up to a total of five cats, dogs or rabbits, or any combination thereof providing the total number of animals does not exceed five.

This amendment was brought to Council as a result of the City of Cold Lake’s new Animal Licensing program. City staff were seeing pet owners attempt to register more animals than what was previously allowed. The City’s administration felt that a change to the bylaw to accommodate residents with multiple pets would be a better response, than denying their application and being forced to issue fines for being in violation of the bylaw.

“We are happy to see the City’s new animal license program is seeing a real uptake by the residents of Cold Lake,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “It’s clear that pet ownership is very important to residents and instead of trying to restrict animals, we want to work with the residents and come to a solution that makes the most sense for everyone. We think this amendment takes a balanced approach to achieve just that.”

Comparisons were made with other municipalities and their animal control bylaws, and Cold Lake was found to be within the normal range of allowable animals within a home. However, the change was deemed appropriate due to the high number of requests and the potential negative impact on residents if the old restrictions were to be strictly enforced. Council felt that a simplified approach to animal ownership in the City of Cold Lake would be a win-win decision for animal lovers and municipal enforcement.

To date, there have been at total of 1,244 animals licensed within the City of Cold Lake. If you have a cat or dog and have not registered them with the City, please do so by visiting www.coldlake.com/petlicence.

City bylaws can be viewed online at www.coldlake.com/bylaws.