We leave in three days!! Santa Fe has enacted a new law for dogs and cats - required dogs to be leashed and cats to stay in their yards. Plus they have to wear licenses.
We lasted one day with cats wearing collars and metal licenses. When I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of Butch eating and his metal tag clinking against the metal cat bowl, I got up and removed the collar.
If cats are picked up by Animal Control, or if a neighbor catches one and call Animal Control, they go to the shelter. If they do not have a license, they may be killed after 5 days. If they do have a license, they will phone you and you have 7 days. Nice. I found out from our vet that we could have a microchip planted in them, but we have no time to do this before we leave, so will do it when we get back.
If we do follow through on our plan to move to England for a year or so, we would have to chip them anyway.
My current pre-trip worry is that the cats will be rounded up in the excitement of this new law and our cat sitter (we have three different ones for the next two months) will not know what they look like when the go to the shelter to look for them. So - mug shots!! Here is Spike's mug shot which I am printing and leaving in the house book. And, as soon as Butch appears, he will be photographed too.
