They are required by State Law – State Statute 174.05. Each County in the State sets the minimum license fees. This can differ by County.  Certain dogs do not require licenses. These are dogs that are kept for educational or scientific purposes and for service dogs for blind, deaf and mobility impaired people. We also gave an exemption to a bomb sniffing dog that was used throughout the state during athletic events. Annual dog license applications are included with the property tax bills and can also be found on the Town Website or by contacting the Town Treasurer.

The Town of Grant does not benefit from the collected fees. All money collected is sent to Portage County Treasurer and is used to fund our portion of the contract that the county has with the Portage County Humane Society. As a matter of fact, the Town has to send additional money to the county if we don’t collect an anticipated number of licenses based on the Town’s population. The good news in 2022 is that the Town of Grant had the highest ratio of dog licenses issued per capital than any of the other municipalities in the county, so our additional cost was minimal. But we still had an estimated 10% of our residents not complying and thus the Town had to contribute in addition to the collected fees.

Dogs younger than 6 months do not have to be licensed. Most dogs can be “fixed” when they reach six months. Thus, you can wait until they are 6 months and then send in the application with the spayed/neutered information. Some breeds and larger dogs have a longer wait to be fixed and if this is the case just note this and your intention to have the procedure done and you do not have to pay the extra $10. Just include the documentation the next year when you renew the license.

You do not have to include a copy of the rabies vaccination if your dog was licensed the previous year in the Town of Grant and the vaccination is not expired when you send in for your license. If you have to send in your vaccination certificate and cannot locate your copy, please contact your vet and request a copy to provide us and that will help speed up the process to get the dog license issued.

The multi-dog licenses are usually for breeders and kennels. You can register up to 12 dogs with the $75 multi-dog license. If you are a breeder and have pups during the year you can contact the Treasurer and they will issue you tags for the pups at no extra charge up to a total of 12.

Yes, there is no charge for a replacement tag. Just contact the Treasurer and a replacement tag will be sent to you.

We will not go back and charge for prior years. There is a late fee of $10 after April 1^st of the current year but if you get your application sent in before then there won’t be any additional charge. As noted above we know there are some residents that haven’t complied, but we do discover a few every year by various means. If the Humane Society is called to check on barking dogs or biting dogs or dogs running loose, they always check for the current license. The Humane Society also contacts the town Treasurer to double check on licenses and rabies vaccinations in cases like this. If we see a dog in the front yard of a residence, we may check that address on the license data base and see if there are registered dogs listed.