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For a long time, Richmond has required that cats and dogs be licensed with the city at a cost of $10 per year. And for a long time, the city has been fairly lax about enforcing it.

As a result, Richmond, a city of 214,000 people, sold 1,898 dog and cat licenses in 2014 — a figure that would make the city the least pet-friendly place in the country if it truly was representative of the number of animals living here.

“Really it was just an honor system in the past,” said Christie C. Peters, director of the city’s Department of Animal Care and Control. “Unless Animal Control was in your home or someone complained about you, we really didn’t enforce it.”

That’s why some residents have been surprised during the past two weeks to receive personalized notices for the first time requesting they register their animals.

Peters’ department has sent out about 11,000 of them as it tries to catch up on a backlog of rabies vaccination notices from area veterinarians. Those are documents that state law requires the vets share with localities but which, in the city’s case, until recently had languished in the treasurer’s office.

Richmond’s treasurer’s office, unlike the counties, has no responsibility over the city’s finances.