Be careful where you get your dog licences from

Last March I was contacted by a lady who had gotten her dog licence from the SPCA when she adopted her dog from there - and 4 months later she lost her dogs tags and contacted the HRM to get a replacement tag.

The HRM had no record of her dog's licence - the SPCA paperwork hadn't been forwarded to the city and/or the city hadn't yet inputted the data into their database and therefore she coudn't get a replacement tag for her dog without a lot of complaining and phone calls.

This week I went to the HRM's Customer Service Ofice At Scotia Square, because I'd gotten a renewal form for Buttercup, but strangely - I didn't get one for Bubby, and I had to get a new one for Sidney (and I also had to pay my property taxes) - so I made the trip in.

When I got there - they had no record of the fact that I had bought a dog licence last year for Bubby. Because I hadn't got a renewal form for Bubby - I took his actual tag in with me - so the lady could see I had been issued a tag - so she was rather flabbergasted that there was no record of him in her system.

I'd imagine it's because I got his tag and renewed Buttercup's tags at my vet's office - and didn't do it directly at the HRM's Customer Service Centre, like I did this week.

The thing is though, that I did those renewals - LAST JUNE.

You would think that the HRM would have gotten the paperwork, or had time to input the data in that time.

What if I would have had a negative interaction with Animal Control in that time, or if Bubby would have run away and needed to be identified by Animal Control - and I had assumed that his tags would have been sufficient to do that? I would have been S-O-L - and so would have Bubby.

So consider this a warning. If you've just blindly been getting your dog's tags at the vet, or anywhere other than directly at the HRM - beware - you may not be protecting your pet.