Dog licencing scheme

[Gwythr]

Hi all.. After some recent tragedies involving dangerous dogs or cruelty to dogs this government petition has caught my eye: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/257660

Does anybody else agree that this would be a good idea?

Thanks

It would inevitably be harder for illegal activities to operate when perpetrators would be required to provide a licence upon a spot check..

I would suggest the scheme could be used like an official background check employed by rescue centres or reputable breeders

Prospective owners may be more likely to give a dog a lifelong home instead of the current trends we have now for "popular" dog breeds. Like the petition details, educating prospective owners is important.

People can now buy a puppy on a whim and many will end up in dogs homes or put to sleep

But what's to stop Bob down the pup ignoring the law?

The 'breeder' is someone making a quick quid off some bitch he owns. He doesn't give a rat's arse about the law - he's just going to sell the puppies for £50 to make some quick cash.

I'd suggest your example above makes it MORE likely puppies are sold down an alleyway because it makes it harder for people to get hold of dogs from even semi-ok breeders. So they turn to the bloke down the pup and buy his puppies, no questions asked, no laws abided.

How will we ever catch them?

Ask vet's to check? Then you risk people refusing to get medical care for their dogs when it's needed, in case their license status is checked.

Ask the police to do random stops? They already cannot keep up with the workload and have only lately been wanring that professional criminals now have real control of the country.

How else are we going to check licence status of people who bought a dog cheap and without checks and who avoid authority? Because they are the people we need to target the most...

I agree the implementation would be challenging.. That's why the details suggest using funding from scheme to enforce its aims..

Well when the illegal breeder is heavily fined or Bob down the pub mistreats the puppy or is reported for having a dangerous dog, the dog can be rescued?

I'm sensing the vibe that there is a fair amount of resistance to the idea.. Anybody who would like to read further details, here's a link:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/257660

Well at least 7 people agree with you....

Two years ago it became law that all dogs over the age of 8 weeks of age had to be microchipped.
Then it became law that pups could not leave their mum till they were 8 weeks of age.
Why then do I still see clients with pups they have acquired at 7 weeks of age or 10 week old pups with no chip.
No one is policing the laws we already have, licensing will not be policed either.
As someone on the frontline of animal welfare we don't need more laws we need better education.

I'm sensing the vibe that there is a fair amount of resistance to the idea.

It's not resistance but the reality that we don't police the laws we already have.

It looks like the 9 out of 10 petitions started online. A well meaning project but flawed by a failure to understand the existing situation, without researching current legislation/powers, and making the assumption that new regulations would suddenly cause all the ne'er do wells to suddenly become law abiding citizens.

And wouldn't have hurt for the text to have been run through a spelling/grammar checker before it was uploaded to the Parliament website.

After some recent tragedies involving dangerous dogs or cruelty to dogs this government petition has caught my eye
I suggest picking half-a-dozen or more recent incidents of this type and making the case why the changes proposed would have made a difference in each case.

I think you'll struggle, because the petition proposal has been made directly from an emotional perspective and without a considered analysis of the problem.

Being rather old, I remember the last time we had dog licences (7/6d they cost, as I recall). We also had puppy farming/dog fighting/out of control dogs with bad owners. Having to have a licence didn't seem to make much difference. I think lots of people didn't bother buying them then (there seemed to be no system to make sure you had one).