More Butler County residents choosing lifetime dog license
The Butler County Treasurer’s office goes through bouts where it gets flooded with calls from people who found the phone number on a dog collar.
The number is a form of insurance, according to Butler County Treasurer Diane Marburger. It is attached to a mandatory dog license for any canine pet at least 8 weeks old, according to Pennsylvania Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement. It ensures that if the dog is lost, other people have a way to get it back to its owner.
And the popularity of lifetime licenses is consistent, with Butler County issuing 790 lifetime dog licenses in 2026, so far.
“It gets the dog back to the owner, that’s the biggest thing Bureau of Dog Law presses,” Marburger said of dog licenses. “Annual tags are lighter and it will wear out; we’ve had dogs chew them apart. The lifetime license is steel, hard as nails.”
Aside from the Butler County Treasurer’s office, the Butler County Humane Society also issues dog licenses, as well as microchips that also help a pet return to its home in case it gets lost.
Janna Unik, executive director of the Butler County Humane Society, said she recommends everyone get their dog — and cat — microchipped, even though pet dogs have to have a license anyway.
“Every animal we adopt out is microchipped, but we do offer microchipping as a service,” Unik said. “We love the idea of sharing the information, because we want to make sure animals get back home as quickly as they can.”
Marburger said dog licenses are issued at county treasurers’ offices throughout Pennsylvania, so dog owners can register their dog in their home county.
The standard license, which is good for one year, costs $10.80. The lifetime license, which is good for the life of a dog, is $52.80, according to Marburger. The cost covers the license as well as the paper and postage it takes to file for the license. Marburger said county treasurers’ offices keep $1 from the sale of an annual license.
Marburger said older adults and people with a disability get a bit of a discount on dog licenses, and the licenses themselves are marked accordingly.
Since 2012, Butler County has sold 15,500 lifetime licenses. Marburger said her office issued 18,482 annual dog licenses and 790 lifetime dog licenses so far in 2026; 19,378 annual dog licenses and 590 lifetime licenses in 2025; and 19,378 annual dog licenses and 953 lifetime dog licenses in 2024. The office started selling dog licenses online in 2023.
And the county treasurer’s office is not the only place to get a dog license — the Butler County Humane Society is an “agent” for the treasurer’s office that also sells dog tags. When the humane society adopts out a dog, it can supply the license to its new owner, who can then get it transferred, if they are coming from a different county.
“You have to do it within your county,” Marburger said, “or they issue the Butler County license and then they do a transfer. You can transfer their information to whatever county they move to.”
A dog license goes on a dog’s collar. It has a unique issue number that is also logged by a county treasurer’s office, so staff members of an office can find the dog’s address by looking up its license number.
Marburger said that although dog licenses are mandatory under state law, they are also helpful even if a dog has a tag with an address on its collar.
“If your dog takes off and doesn’t have any form of ID, you might never get one back,” Marburger said. “The only thing on there is the year and the number, which is the date of file. We punch in the number and we know who the owner is.”
And while the Butler County Humane Society recently added a page on its website for reporting lost and found pets, Unik said people who find a dog without a human should ask around their neighborhood before reporting it. If that doesn’t get the dog home, its finders could log it on the humane society’s website.
According to Unik, there are several ways the shelter can help a dog get back home.
“We try to find the owner on our social, if an animal is brought into us,” Unik said. “We do have microchip scanners.”
Unik said the humane society has “always been available as a resource” for people who lose pets. But, she asks that people who find a dog without an owner call the humane society instead of bringing it right to the shelter, because the organization has limited space for dogs that already seem to have an owner.
Butler County Humane Society holds all stray animals for a 48 hours, to give owners a chance to reclaim their pets. Dogs and cats receive a full-body scan for microchips at intake and before they are adopted or transported, according to the organization’s website.
“We get a lot of strays, and when an animal comes in, we do try to reach out and find the owner right away,” Unik said. “One of the things we’re able to do is if somebody finds one, we can let them know if we have space to help with placement until an owner is found.”
Unik said it costs $20 for the humane society to microchip a pet, whether it be a dog or a cat. The shelter provides this service on site.
And speaking of cats, Marburger said they are not required to have licenses because there is no “Bureau of Cat Law.” Unik said she recommends that cat owners get their felines microchipped so they can be located if they get lost. However, Marburger said cats are not delegated in the law because there is less a risk that they will injure a person.
“There’s not a cat law, cats are a little different breed,” Marburger said. “They’re not like a dog, a cat won’t run up and bite you.”
