Fancier permits now available through city

The long-contentious issue of allowing people to get a permit to keep more than three dogs and cats in their homes came to an end as the permit process opened up this week.

Permit applications became available on July 18. And one of the first applicants is the animal control supervisor who has four dogs.

According to Ann Inabnitt, the process is simple. “Everything is done at the shelter, so you don’t have to go to City Hall,” she said.

The application includes information on everyone —pet and human —living in the home. Inabnitt said it is the same background check procedure they use when evaluating applications to adopt an animal from the shelter.

“We make sure the the property is not fraught with interactions with the police for anything like domestic violence,” Inabnitt said. “If the property is a rental, we speak to the landlord to make sure they are aware of the number of animals in the home. Once that is done, if there is no negative history with the property, we take a look at any history of neighbor complaints. We don’t want to take a property where we have had problems and compound those.”

Once the application and background and history check are done, animal control officers will do an inspection of the home looking for obvious signs of animal hoarding as well as checking the size of the home in relation to the number of pets.

Only dogs and cats are subject to the new limit of six total with a permit. Asked what would happen if an applicant had the max number of dogs plus, say, a dozen Guinea pigs, Inabnitt said that it all depends on the property.

“I probably would not have an issue with those numbers in a 5,000-square-foot home,” she said. “If it was an 800-square-foot home, the answer might be different.”

Back in May of last year, Samantha Jenkins, in the public comment period of a city council meeting, made a plea for the city to create a process through which she could get a license to breed dogs. A month later, an item was placed on the council agenda directing city staff to study and advise the council on possibly allowing limited pet breeding and coupling that idea with a separate permit for pet “fanciers” that would allow residents with a permit to have more than the legal limit of three pets in their home.

In the same meeting, Inabnitt laid out some startling statistics for Boulder City based on how full shelters in the Las Vegas Valley had become.

“What does that mean for Boulder City?” she asked rhetorically. “Dumped dogs. We used to get two a year. We’re getting four a week now.”

That situation has not improved in the ensuing year.

The issue went through a dizzying series of changes. It appeared to be on track for approval and then was pulled back in favor of a business impact study in February. In early April, the still-paired issues of breeding and fancying were back on the agenda and almost passed. Mayor Joe Hardy had accepted a motion and second to approve a bill that would have established both breeder and fancier permits when two council members raised questions.

Councilmember Sherri Jorgensen questioned the number of animals allowed under a fancier/foster permit. “With fancier/foster, the only regulation is that you can have up to eight. There is no size of property requirement. I really have a concern with that number, to be honest.”

Councilmember Steve Walton also voiced concern with the amount of the fee associated with a breeder’s permit advocating that it be cut in half from the the proposed $500 annually.

With only four council members in attendance (Matt Fox was absent) and two of those having misgivings about details of the proposed ordinance, it became obvious that the votes to pass were not there.

In the end, despite having already moved and seconded a motion to enact the proposed changes, the motions were amended and the item was tabled until the meeting scheduled for April 9.

It was not until after that almost-passage that public opposition really ramped up with dozens of people speaking at meetings and submitting letters in opposition to the breeding part of the proposal. The issue was postponed several times.

When it finally came back in June, the fancier permit had been separated from the breeding question and the number of allowed animals under the permit had dropped from eight to six. Pet fancier (owning four dogs at the time of the vote) and member of the council Cokie Booth had gone on record in an interview saying she had never wanted a breeder permit legalized but that the city attorney had told her that if the city wanted to put in a fancier permit, they also needed a breeder permit option.

In June, the fancier option was passed without the breeder permit attached. It is expected that the issue of breeder permits will come back at a future meeting.