Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter, Cuyahoga County Fiscal Department

Dog Kennel Registration

This registration is narrower than its name suggests, and the narrowing is what most readers need first: it applies to a commercial dog-breeding establishment, not to a veterinary clinic that provides medical care or ordinary boarding. The county's form quotes the statutory definition at ORC 955.02 — a kennel is 'an establishment that keeps, houses, and maintains adult dogs … for the purpose of breeding the dogs for a fee or other consideration received through a sale, exchange, or lease and that is not a high volume breeder licensed under Chapter 956 of the Revised Code.' The amount is enacted in the Cuyahoga County Code, at §713.01(D), which reads in full 'Kennel Registration Fee is $100', a section put in place by Ordinance No. O2013-0021, enacted 27 August 2013 and effective 28 August 2013. The county's registration form prints three figures that all follow from that one plus the statute, and the arithmetic is worth setting out because the form itself does not: ORC 955.04(A) sets a base registration fee 'unless a greater fee has been established under section 955.14 of the Revised Code', which is the route Cuyahoga took to $100; it then provides that 'If the application is not filed and the fee paid, on or before the thirty-first day of January of each year, the auditor shall assess a penalty in an amount equal to the registration fee', which turns $100 into the form's $200 after 31 January; and it states that 'The payment of the kennel registration fee entitles the licensee to not more than five tags, to bear consecutive numbers', with 'additional tags, in excess of the five tags … issued upon payment of an additional fee of one dollar per tag'. So five tags come with the fee as a statutory entitlement rather than being a minimum purchase. Not registering at all is a strict liability offence under ORC 955.04(B) and (C), fined 'not less than twenty-five dollars or more than one hundred dollars on a first offense, and on each subsequent offense … not less than seventy-five dollars or more than two hundred fifty dollars', with up to thirty days' imprisonment possible. Registrations are handled through the Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter at 9500 Sweet Valley Drive, Valley View, and countersigned by a Deputy Auditor or Warden.