DOG LICENSES
Jacob Signorovitch
For at least two hundred years, dog licensing has been used as a way to keep track of the dogs of New England. It is hard to date when the first dog licenses were issued, but they have appeared in the Wayland town records since the split from Sudbury in 1780. Each license records the dog’s age, breed, and coat color. Some licenses, including Flora’s pictured above, included the dog’s name. The licenses served, and continue to serve, a number of purposes for the residents of Wayland. Identifying the owner when a lost dog was found was one important use. Another reason for the town to issue dog licenses was financial. Dog licenses have been much more expensive historically than they are today, with licenses costing $2 for males and $5 for females in 1885 dollars. In today’s money, these 1885 costs would be $56 for a male and $140 for a female. The current fee for a dog license from the Town of Wayland is $15 for both males and females. Back in 1885, from the 164 licenses issued that year the town collected a total of $379–which amounts to over $10,000 in today’s money. Half was allocated to the Town Library and half to the school system in that year, which was typical of many other years.
