Here's a shaggy dog story about dogs and libraries. In 1869, thanks to Chapter 250 of the Acts of the Massachusetts Legislature, an odd little funding source began wagging its way into town budgets across the state, the dog tax. While it sounds like a bizarre footnote in the Commonwealth's bureaucratic history, dog licensing revenue was anything but trivial. It's helped sustain one of Massachusetts’ most treasured civic institutions, the free public library.
Massachusetts requires all dogs six months or older to be licensed. That involves paying a yearly fee. Dog licenses help identify lost dogs and provide proof of rabies vaccination. That’s the contemporary dog tax.
Jessica Branco Colati, a preservation specialist with the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, puts the dog tax from 150 years ago into perspective.
“We think about which laws and licenses [and] that's modern times. But back in the very early days of the Commonwealth, this was as much about a dog attacking a neighbors livelihood, and this is a way to make it right. Or at least try to compensate for those damages,” she says.
So, she's saying that if, for example, a flock of sheep was attacked by a loose dog, the shepherd would get some money from the dog fund [from] 150 years ago. Those unspent dog funds are the same ones that the middle-aged Lanesborough businessman and representative Justus Tower proposed be refunded back to communities to public libraries across the state (except in the case of Suffolk County, where the money would be sent to the schools).
“He was very much interested in educational matters and other town affairs, and he and his of the library by the dog tax is due to his advocacy in town meetings,” says historian Gordon Roberts from the Berkshire Atheneum. He was reading a description of Tower from a Lanesborough town history.
Just before the turn of the 20th century Massachusetts Library Commissioner Henry Nourse penned a state report that stated fewer than one half of 1% of Massachusetts residents were without access to a free public library. What he didn't write was that it was thanks in part, to the funding fetched by Fido.
For generations, the dog fund was a dependable, if quirky, income stream. Libraries used it to purchase books, staff, and keep the lights on.
One of those communities was Wilbraham.
“Looking back at the annual reports and some histories of the library, I was able to determine that there were several years that the dog tax was actually used as part of our budget,” says Mary Bell, the Assistant Director of the Wilbraham Public Library.
In Franklin County, Suzanne Bishop recalls the funding sources she monitored as the treasurer of the Shelburne Free Public Library in the 1980s. She says there was town and state funding, certificates of deposit, and again, there was that dog fund revenue line.
“We thought it was very lovely, but it was also quite curious.” Bishop says while it was a nice income stream, nobody on the board gave it a second thought, “We were all elected officials, but we all had very busy lives, and I don't think anyone ever bothered to track down the history of it.”
Nearly a century before the Shelburne Free Public Library trustees were intrigued by the dog fund revenue, the Springfield Daily Republican newspaper published an item that began with “Massachusetts gives her dog tax to public libraries [...].”
As Charles Francis Adams argued in the pages of the Times-Democrat newspaper of New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1879, “Every book in the Quincy Library was paid for by dogs, or at least by their dutiful owners.”
In the late 19th century, using the unexpended money from the dog fund, for libraries, was still a fairly new concept. The Lanesborough town history shows the dog tax continued to fund that public library well into the 20th century, reports Berkshire Athenaeum historian Gordon Roberts.
“The idea is, until 1960, the [Lanesborough] library depended upon the dog tax and the small appropriations for the library. That tax was instrumental in raising funds to keep the library open,” Gordon says.
In fact, many libraries were still pooch powered, at least to a small extent, until a law change in the mid-1980s that allowed towns to stop participating in the county dog licensing system and control their own dog fee destinies. It was then that communities began straying from sending their dog funds to the libraries. Many communities have collared this revenue stream and now use it for other purposes.
It's ironic that in the hometown of the man who proposed funding libraries with dog taxes, the current library director didn't know the dog fund was ever a funding option. Sheila Parks learned about it in a training module on how to produce a report for the state.
She re it saying something like, “most of you probably don't have this anymore, but there are still some municipalities that set aside some dog tax or dog funds for libraries.”
The preservation specialist Jessica Branco Colati, at the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, helped dig up some more information about man's best friend lending a helping paw to the libraries. She says in so many of these communities, especially the smaller ones, the only funding was the dog tax; it could be [just] a couple of hundred dollars a year.
As of FY25, there are two towns that still appropriate their dog funds to their public library: Pelham and Heath.
Voters recently gathered at the Annual Town Meeting in Heath to debate and the town's budget for the next fiscal year. Heath Town Eric Sumner read article 19 to residents. It was recommended by the Town Finance Committee. It transfers $723.51 from the Animal Control officer revolving fund, for the use of the public library. There was no discussion.
“Those in favor say aye. Those opposed? Nay. Article 19 es unanimously.”
The preservation specialist, Jessica Branco Colotti, reacted to the news that Heath ed the dog tax unanimously saying, “It’s a relatively small but so meaningful amount that they're still doing this, that they're one of the last communities in the state. I think that's fabulous!”
Heath Public Library Director Kate Barrows wasn't surprised that residents ed the dog fund like a dog with a bone, “We don't have money for programing or supplies in our town appropriated budget. That's what the dog fund money ends up going towards, either supplies to help us keep the library running or some kind of programing.”
That $723.51 from the dog fund will provide pooch purchase power next year.
Barrows added, “unfortunately, dogs are not allowed to visit the library inside because of the town law, but they're welcome to come visit outside the library. And we do have a lot of dogs that do that, so I'm sure they would be happy to know that this money is going to the library.” She laughed.
When it comes to public libraries, every dog has its day. And that's the curious tale of how dogs keep the books in Massachusetts.
Disclaimer: Reporter Carrie Healy is not a real librarian yet. Just a big fan with dreams and a library card. She currently works at two public libraries, soaking it all in and hoping to make it official one day.
