Bella and Shadow are top county names for dogs, cats

I’ve been home sick much of this week. How sick? I couldn’t bring myself to make it to work Wednesday even though I knew I’d be missing what is, hands down, always the most entertaining county commissioner work session of the year.

Wait for it …

The annual review of Clark County Code Enforcement and Animal Protection & Control.

Yes!

Fortunately, Paul Scarpelli, who because of layoffs has found himself as not only the finance manager of the community development department, but also manager of code enforcement and animal control, was kind enough to email me the presentation.

It contains a week’s worth of blogworthy notes, but I’ll start with these two awesome sentences: “In 2011 our field officers responded to a live pregnant skunk, two live bats, a red boa (live) snake abandoned on the side of Highway 14, several large cruelty cases involving horses, dogs, cats, two miniature horses, many cows, goats, sheep, and chickens. They also dealt with guinea pigs, bunnies (domestic rabbits breeding out of control in some areas), numerous parrots and a vicious black swan menacing people at a retirement facility’s pond.”

Go ahead and read that last line again.

Scarpelli was pleased to report that licensing for dogs and cats was up 30 percent from 2010 to 2011, most likely because all jurisdictions agreed to increase the fine for not licensing dogs and cats from $25 to $100. Licensing revenues, which pay for animal control services, were up to $465,462.

And what were the most popular monikers for these licensed dogs and cats?

The Top 5 Names for Dogs: Bella (109), Buddy (105), Molly (100), Lucy (97) and Max (86).

The Top 5 Names for Cats: Shadow (19), Smokey (18), Tiger (18), Kitty (17) and Sophie (17).

For information on pet registration, go here.