You really shouldn’t get a pet. Not if you don’t want to license it and pay the annual renewal fee. Not if you don’t want to get it spayed or neutered. Not if you’re unwilling to keep it on a leash, off your neighbors’ property, reasonably quiet or updated on vaccinations.

If you do have a pet, but can’t meet the above requirements, you really ought to be fined. Nobody should feel sorry for pet owners who are too lazy or uncaring to shoulder their responsibilities.

Fact is, there are far more pets than responsible pet owners, and that’s where animal shelters come in. They provide a place for pets that are lost and abandoned, but they get more animals than they can handle. That means some of them must be euthanized, which is a nice way of saying killed.

But the animals aren’t the only victims. Taxpayers help pick up the tab for careless pet owners, and it has become a larger issue as Spokane County grows. The county’s shelter, SCRAPS, is on pace to handle 8,000 pets this year. That would be a record. The city-contracted shelter, SpokAnimal C.A.R.E., is stressed.

The Spokane Valley City Council has spotlighted the expense of its SCRAPS contract, noting that it costs $1,000 a day. Council members want the agency to become more aggressive in collecting fines to offset costs. More than half of the county’s dog owners choose to break the law by not licensing their pets. About 80 percent of cat owners do the same.

Such free-loading is not fair to those who don’t own pets or those pet owners who follow the laws.

Fairness aside, the region hurts itself by having a splintered, confusing approach to animal control. If you lose a pet, there are multiple places to check. Also, pet licensing doesn’t transfer across jurisdictions. So pet owners moving from one locale to another may have to relicense their pets. Many people don’t know this.

Wisely, the county and city of Spokane are exploring the establishment of a regional shelter under a single jurisdiction. An obvious hurdle is cost. While Spokane Valley is paying $1,000 a day, Spokane is paying about half that. And the difference shows in the shelters themselves. SpokAnimal is cramped and draws a lot of complaints. SCRAPS has a larger facility with roomier kennels and an area for prospective pet owners to get to know the animals. An expanded version would give the entire region a quality facility.

That might mean more money from city coffers, but that can be alleviated by a more forceful approach to collecting licensing fees. The region can no longer allow pet scofflaws to shirk their responsibilities. If they won’t license their animals, then they must be fined.

Only then will they think twice about acquiring pets, ignoring laws and shifting the costs onto others.