Make Cats Wear License Tags? Just Try It

When Mayor Richard Riordan proposed licensing cats in the city of Los Angeles earlier this week, he confessed that he does not have a cat.

Right--like, big surprise there.

Anyone who owns a cat--and we use the term “own” in the most provisional way--will tell you that a cat who lives in a sub-world of his own making, who comes when called only if he feels like it, is not likely to submit to having his neck festooned with a license tag. (So like a dog, cats would think with disdain.)

“My cat would have a fit if I put anything around her neck,” said entertainment-industry personal manager Juliet Green, who lives in Laurel Canyon with a 12-year-old black shorthair named Myka. “My cat would look at me and say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ ”

Well, so far, the city is not kidding. The proposal would mandate an annual $8 fee for neutered cats and $30 a year for un-neutered cats as an incentive for cat owners to do their part in curbing animal overpopulation. The cat would get a little tag with an identification number and the phone number of the Animal Services Department.

For Pets’ Sake, and ‘Species Equity’

The city says that licensing is intended to protect cats, allowing lost animals to be identified and returned by Animal Services to their owners, the way cities from Atlanta to Las Vegas to Sacramento already do.

Besides, city officials argue, dog owners are already paying those same license fees. “It’s really a matter of species equity,” said Riordan spokesman Deane Leavenworth. (Cat owners, insert your gales of laughter here.)

“Dogs are always getting out and running around,” responded Green. “Cats are hardly a drain on the city resources.”

The city is initially expecting compliance for only about 5% of the estimated 800,000 cats in Los Angeles. The fact that most of the revenue would go into the city’s general fund, rather than to Animal Services, leaves some cat owners suspicious about the city’s claim that cat licenses are intended for the animals’ own good, rather than simply for replenishing city coffers.

Which, in turn, has led to whimsical sarcasm among those who admire a certain feline defiance, such as the ability to hide under precisely the middle of the bed so as to be completely out of reach of human arms, brooms and other implements.

“My cats don’t drive,” said Carol Zimring, mistress of Munchkin and Misty. “There’s no way I’m letting them near the car, so they don’t need a license.”

Push Zimring, a paralegal who lives and works in Encino, and she says she might reconsider. “I thought about it and we do license attorneys and we license doctors, so maybe it is good to license cats so we won’t get any unsavory characters appearing to be cats.”

Author Nancy Griffin noted that she and most other cat owners who worry about their cats getting lost already put I.D. tags around their necks. She said she would be reluctant to load down her cat with a second, city-mandated tag.

“I don’t want to hear them jingling around too much, because he’ll wake me up,” she said.

For the moment, the city is treading on little cat feet with this proposal. Officials stress they will rely on voluntary compliance. If the proposal wins City Council approval next month when it votes on the 1998-99 budget, the license provision would probably not take effect until the end of the year.

Cats have greeted the proposal with a resounding “Make me.”

“He’s lying here at the moment and can barely bother to lift his head up,” said Griffin of her 6-year-old tabby, Sanjay, as he took the news sprawled on his owner’s Venice patio table. “He’s in the middle of his afternoon nap, which will segue into his evening nap.”

Clearly, cats know that they will never be caught unless they want to be caught.

“What are they going to do if the cats aren’t licensed?” asked Griffin. “Will there be catnappers looking for the unlicensed cats?”

The city isn’t that dumb. It understands it really can’t enforce the proposal.

No, said Riordan spokesman Leavenworth, you will not hear an animal control officer say: “Look, a stray cat! Quick, Harry, hand me the tranquilizer dart.”

“Will there be armies of people roaming the streets looking for unlicensed cats?” asked Leavenworth, the owner of a burly 6-year-old Maine coon cat named Buzz. “No.”

For the record, there are no longer dog catchers and there never will be cat police. Animal control officers do not routinely patrol for strays unless they are responding to complaints by residents.

(There are, however, private companies that canvass door to door for the city looking for unlicensed dogs and encouraging owners to comply. The city has not decided if it would use canvassers for cat licensing.)

Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Pasadena, among other cities, let their cats live license-free. “The challenge with licensing cats is licensing cats--just finding the cats that people own,” said Elizabeth Stelow of the Pasadena Humane Society. “Dogs are so much easier to identify. You see the cat on the street, who does it belong to? I think, frankly, that’s why so many cities don’t even try.”

California requires all dogs to be licensed to ensure that the animals are vaccinated against rabies.

Owner Suggests Voluntary Registration

Henry Kowalewski figures he’s already a scofflaw, feline-wise.

Kowalewski has 13 cats living with him in his Los Feliz home. “I think by law you can have five in a house,” said Kowalewski, who buys and renovates houses for a living. (Actually, Los Angeles lets you have only three of each species--dogs and cats--before you are technically required to get a kennel license.)

Many of the cat owners who balk at a license fee are already taking scrupulously good care of their felines. Kowalewski, for instance, intentionally adopted only strays and injured cats and has had them all neutered.

“My cats annually get their shots, the whole routine,” he said. And they all carry I.D. “My cats go outside. They have their little name tags and telephone numbers.”

Alan Segal, a creative director at the advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, has two neutered cats, Boris and Natasha, 10-year-old brother and sister shorthairs, who stay completely inside his Brentwood apartment. His cats were recently found to have diabetes. “I have to run home twice a day to give them insulin injections, so I am a devoted daddy,” Segal said. “It seems to me the cost of spaying and neutering alone should make up for the license fee.”

He suggests that the city think about voluntary registration. “If it’s of service to the cat owner, that would be good. I think owners who feel secure that their cats are not going to run out the front door should not be forced to pay a fee.”

For all the cat owners’ merciless ribbing of a city government that believes it can make a cat do anything, many owners would pay the license fee--simply because you can make cat owners do anything for kitties.

“Anything that’s for the good of cats sounds good to me,” Griffin said. “What is the money going for? If it goes toward animal shelters and improving the conditions of animals who end up in shelters, I wouldn’t mind paying for it.”

In fact, however, only $2 of each cat license fee would be used for animal services. The money would help support the city’s neutering voucher program, in which participating veterinarians honor city vouchers that cut $20 off the cost of the animal neutering operation.

The voucher program up to now has been funded by dog license fees. (There are an estimated 735,000 dogs in the city, slightly below the cat population, but only 165,000 of them are licensed.) Ironically, most of the vouchers end up going to cat owners.

Amy Grey, president of her own public relations firm, said she will buy the licenses for her two cats, Tabby, 13, and Fidel, 7 (“I was in my Cuban period”), if only as a sartorial outlet.

“They’ve always had collars--I think they look naked without them,” said Grey. “Maybe they could make this tag something fashionable. Yes, they would wear them. They support this.”