Protect Your Pooch

The ins and outs of dog licensing in Franklin County

By Sarah Grace Smith

DOG LICENSING IS an important requirement for all dog owners. First off, it is required by law, so owning an unlicensed dog is punishable by fine. A dog license ensures protection on multiple fronts.

By licensing your dog, you are protecting it in case it gets loose and is found by someone in the community. It also protects other dogs in the area by making sure dogs are vaccinated and can’t spread diseases to their furry friends.

Due to COVID-19, Franklin County Auditor Michael Stinziano extended the 2021 deadline to July 1, so there’s still time to register your dog without fines or penalties.

But what exactly is a dog license, and why should you get one?

With proper licensing, the found dog search feature on the Franklin County Auditor’s website is the best way to ensure lost pets are safely returned home.

Owners must license any outdoor or indoor dog older than three months. Licenses must be renewed annually, unless a three-year or permanent dog license is purchased.

All dogs four months or older must have a rabies vaccine in order to be licensed. Dogs older than one year must be vaccinated every three years.

In order to slow the overpopulation of dogs in Franklin County, the auditor’s office offers an $18 annual discount for dogs that are spayed or neutered.

Best Columbus Dog Parks

Dogs need exercise and socialization to live their best, happiest and healthiest lives. A great way for your dog to get both is to visit a dog park.

After licensing and vaccinating your furry friend, take it on a trip to one of these Columbus-area dog parks.

Many of dog parks are part of Franklin County Metro Parks or the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department, and include trails, walking paths and more.

Remember when visiting to bring a leash for when your dog is outside of the fenced area, as well as a water bowl. Godown Dog Park This dog park is split into a side for small dogs and a side for large dogs so as not to intimidate the little pups. The area is quite large, giving the dogs plenty of space to run. The park’s features include benches, trees, a dog water fountain and a large parking lot. Scioto Audubon Metro Park This large park rests along the banks of the Scioto River. With separate areas for large and small dogs, the park also boasts an agility course and digging sand pit. Tail Wags Playground Tail Wags is an indoor dog park open for any weather. The front room “on-leash lounge” offers coffee, snacks and wi-fi, while the back room features a large indoor yard with play areas. Friends of Alum Creek Dog Park For a little out-of-the-city adventure, head to Friends of Alum Creek Dog Park. This park contains three fenced-in lake areas for dogs to swim as well as two large areas for big and small dogs to run. The park provides a hose, water bowls and shared toys. The Auditor and his pets

The Franklin County Auditor is a dog lover himself. Stinziano has two pugs, Wrigley and Fenway.

In 2006, Stinziano and his family knew they wanted a pug. After searching, they found a dog rescue in Toledo that had pugs ready for adoption. The family drove up to adopt one pug, and came home with two!

Fenway and Wrigley were born in the same litter and then separated for fostering. However, when Stinziano and his family arrived in Toledo, both pugs were united at the time with a new foster family. When Stinziano saw how happy the two were together, he couldn’t help himself, and was quick to adopt both Wrigley and Fenway.

The two pugs love to walk around the Stinziano’s neighborhood in the University District – they receive lots of pets from college students who pass by on their walks. Stinziano says they also enjoy frolicking in Goodale Park.

Although they are siblings, each dog has a unique personality. While Wrigley enjoys cuddling and spinning, Fenway is often seeking out the highest point in a room from which he can survey his environment.

The discount also applies if the dog is younger than nine months, elderly, diagnosed with a qualifying condition, being bred or used for hunting.

Even if an owner chooses a permanent dog license, they must remember to update their address in order to aid the auditor’s office in returning lost dogs home.

Applications for dog licenses can be filled out online or by mail.

The Auditor’s office invests nearly all the funds from licensing fees into the rescue, care and housing of lost and homeless dogs at the Franklin County Dog Shelter and Adoption Center. A portion is also donated to The Ohio State University to research animal diseases.

If a lost or stray dog is found, it should be brought to the shelter to be reclaimed by and reunited with its owners. CS

Sarah Grace Smith is an editorial assistant. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.

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GameStops Without Frontiers

Same old lessons from January’s stock short squeeze

By Brandon Klein

THE GAMESTOP-REDDIT stock market rigamarole has become another case study of stock market manias and bubbles.

We may be just a few months removed from the oddity that has been given such affectionate names as “GameStonks,” but there are plenty of books on the phenomenon it represents. Take the 1949 classic The Intelligent Investor, which retells how Sir Isaac Newton lost the equivalent of more than $3 million (adjusted for inflation) when the physicist succumbed to the enthusiasm surrounding one of the hottest stocks in England.

The GameStop kerfuffle wasn’t much different. In January, users on the internet forum Reddit triggered a short squeeze of the American video game retailer’s stock, causing large losses for some hedge funds and short sellers.

In general, investors borrow shares from a broker to sell them quickly on the market. Those investors have to close the shorts, or give the shares back to the broker, by buying back the shares, and they make a profit if they buy back at a price lower than the one for which they sold.

Investors assumed GameStop would be an easy stock to short. But that didn’t happen, as people using investing platforms such as Robinhood began buying up GameStop stock. Affected short sellers rushed to buy back those stocks to avoid taking a huge financial loss, causing GameStop’s value to increase further.

“I think the lessons are that the market can be irrational,” says Alex Durbin, a chartered financial analyst at Columbusbased The Joseph Group Capital Management. “’Things like this occur, and that’s why the markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”

Durbin says two things drive individual stocks in the market: the fundamentals, a company’s actual situation, and the sentiment investors have about that particular company or its stock. The two don’t always align, and several short sellers of GameStop stock had more negative sentiment than perhaps the fundamentals of the company might have suggested, Durbin says.

The Reddit user who triggered the incident, however, had been following the stock for years beforehand, Durbin adds.

“(His) thesis was that the fundamentals for GameStop really weren’t as bad as people thought. … He was thinking about this in 2018, and for a long time, the market didn’t agree with him,” he says. “And then COVID came and the situation facing brick and mortar retailers looked pretty grim. So for a while, it didn’t look like a great trade.”

The uniqueness of the pandemic caused changes in the product cycle, as did the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.

“There was this surge in retail activity that benefited a company like GameStop. And sentiment really began to shift, I would say, late in the year of 2020. And then a few other things happened. … Activist investors got involved and people really started paying attention,” says Durbin. “… More and more people started to kind of catch on to this.”

Investors can appreciate how one Reddit user did the research to determine that a stock’s worth was more than the market was recognizing, Durbin says.

“Hey, you do your homework and you see a good opportunity and have the conviction to hold through. That’s a good thing,” he says.

However, Durbin cautions investors about getting caught up in these kinds of manias and bubbles.

“In the short term, it’s really difficult to have a good read on the direction of an individual stock or markets in general and make a lot of money, even if you’re well informed,” he says. “It’s very, very hard to have any kind of predictive power over what the market or what a stock is going to do today, tomorrow, next week or next month.”

He notes a number of stories of people taking out graduate school loans or using savings for a house to buy GameStop stock at several hundred dollars per share.

“I think that’s where it becomes somewhat foolish,” he says.

In addition, investors should always have conversations with their financial advisers and brokers on what types of funds, particularly hedge funds, their money is being invested in, Durbin says.

“Thinking about the other side of this trade, the hedge funds that suffered tremendous losses, it highlights some of the challenges that investing in a hedge fund presents – less transparency, less liquidity. Hedge funds aren’t required to report with the same level of detail that a mutual fund might need to report,” Durbin says. “And the liquidity feature is such that if you want your money from the hedge fund tomorrow, you probably can’t get it. … You might have a one-year lock-up, and then after that, you might have access on a quarterly basis and you may only be able to access a certain percentage of your investment.”

Not all hedge funds are the same. Some perform well and limit risk. What’s important is understanding the process as an investor and having a good financial adviser.

“It’s often very difficult for an individual investor in a hedge fund or any pooled investment vehicle to have access to the portfolio manager,” Durbin says. “Having a financial adviser who is able to get a sense of what’s going on and what the risks are who can then relay that information to clients is key.” CS

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