Compulsory dog scanning.

[MarcoPoloCX]

It will be law to have all dogs chipped but currently there are thousands of dogs that are chipped and missing. Would it be possible to have all dogs scanned when they check in at the vets on every visit? And if the chipping companies work closely together with the vets, details of the dog being stolen would come up in the scanner and the chip company alerted who will then alert the owner they have on their database.

Also new owners should be encouraged to take their new dogs for routine check up. And if it's stolen this would be picked up very quickly and the people they bought it from reported to the police. I can also see there would be ppl with no morals who bought a stolen dog and are not willing to return it due to amount of money and time they spent with the pet. I just think unless this is somehow made compulsory it's not going to help all those dogs that are chipped and missing.

The vast majority of vets do scan a new dog when they meet them to check that
A. Microchip details match with paperwork
B. That they don' t have a chip
C. Check out a dog acquired in unusual circumstances.
Our legal obligation is to the person who inserted the chip.
Sadly I suspect the stolen dogs are in the 17% of UK dogs who are not registered with a vet.

Oh meant to mention that the feeling in vet community is that the unscrupulous owners will still not have their dogs chipped.

If a dog is chipped and the owner alerted the chipping company that it's stolen. Does that flare up when you scan the dog? The 17%, are these un chipped dogs? If they are chipped, it wouldn't make any difference if they are vet registered or not.

In short, no it doesn't 'flare up', the scanners simply read the number. There is more than one chip company and they normally email practices details of missing pets which ime get filed in a folder and half the staff don't see them. Also anyone can request change of ownership for a few pounds via the chip company.
With the new legislation I don't think the current set-up is adequate. A single national database would be better and clearer guidelines for vets registering new pets are needed.

These 17% of dogs have never, ever seen a vet so are not neutered so highly unlikley to be chipped.
Firstly the legislation is not actually on the statute books it is due in parliament in the autumn so a new government may do away with it. Secondly it has teeth dog fouling carries greater penalties.
It is a panacea. To make it functional there would need to be changes to the veterinary surgeons act ( we only had a new one a few years ago) and our code of professional conduct.
IMO good owners will follow the act and bad owners will just continue to do what they like.

Sorry just checked legislation has now gone through, but I think a new government could fail to enforce it and it will be low priority.
As yet not every local authority dog warden does not have a scanner.

Looks like a lot of improvement to the current system is required. Maybe introducing something like DVLA for dogs where change of ownership requires signatures and national insurance numbers from old and new owners. Any new dogs are mandatory scanned and if they are not chipped, they have to be chipped on the spot.

At the moment I think changes would have to be made to the system before this can happen.
To routinely check, phone and confirm every dogs details would be too time consuming in a 10min appointment and in my experience it's rarely done to be honest (and I've worked in many vets) unless it is specifically requested.

Even if the chip details don't match it opens up a bit of a minefield for us!

In theory it's a great idea but in practice it's more difficult to do.