Dogs Trust Slams RSPCA Dog Licence Proposal

In what appears to be a battle of the ‘my idea is better than your idea’, The Dogs Trust have hit out at the RSPCA’s call for the reintroduction of a national dog licence for English dog owners. The charity has issued a statement claiming, without a hint of irony, that  the take up for the licence in Northern Ireland is poor and so the ‘better’ approach would be compulsory microchipping. The charity doesn’t explain (as it hasn’t to date) how or why it believes that their compulsory microchipping idea would be taken up by the dog owners who they claim would not take up other compulsory measures but they do go on to mention that you can pay the Dogs Trust £10 to get a microchip for your dog.The Dog Trust’s response reads as follows:

Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest dog welfare charity, does not believe that a return to the dog licence would provide the suggested welfare benefit for dogs. The charity is very surprised that the RSPCA believes that this could be beneficial to animal welfare when the dog licence is simply a tax on dog ownership. This view is extremely naïve; responsible owners might struggle to pay what is likely to be a punitive annual licence.

The dog licence has also been shown to be an ineffective measure in the UK. In Northern Ireland, where the dog licence is still a requirement, only an estimated one-third of all dog owners currently have their dogs licensed. Northern Ireland still has the highest number of stray dogs per head of population of any region in the UK and the number of dogs put to sleep in the region represents a staggering 34% of the total UK figure.

Dogs Trust recommends compulsory microchipping as the most effective means of registration as well as identification of a dog. Unlike the dog licence, which involves an annual fee, microchipping involves just a small one-off fee (Dogs Trust offers microchipping at its centres for £10). The benefit to responsible owners and their dogs is therefore relatively cheap and effective.

Microchipping a dog should infer legal ownership and reinforces the responsibilities of the owner under the Animal Welfare Act. The introduction of compulsory microchipping would allow stray dogs to be quickly returned to their owners, make easier the identification of owners who persistently allow their dogs to stray or cause nuisance, and make all puppies traceable to their breeder, helping to reduce the widespread problem of battery farming of dogs.

You will note the Dogs Trust do not explain:

• How they will achieve FULL take up of this compulsory microchipping scheme whilst arguing that other compulsory schemes would be ignored by certain dog owners
• How or why irresponsible breeders (puppy farmers) would be any more likely to chip their puppies
• How their scheme would be paid for in terms of the extra revenue required for enforcement (at least the dog licence proposal – as BAD as it is – would drive revenue to the dog wardens and local authorities responsible for overseeing the extra enforcement rather than a microchipping scheme which would, on its own, not drive anywhere near enough money for proper enforcement (and if it did, it would have to priced high enough – which would totally destroy the idea that it was not a ‘tax’ on dog ownership, something The Dogs Trust is at pains to complain about regarding other proposals (microchipping is not free and if it is compulsory for ALL dog owners, then it’s a tax – any way you want to dress it up)
• Does NOT mention that microchipping is not the ONLY form of permanent identification that dog owners could choose to adopt – many responsible dog owners do not chip their dogs, they opt for other methods of permanent ID
• Does not explain how microchipping alone would present significant welfare benefits to dogs OTHER than in the case of straying – it certain would have zero preventative or educational merits in the case of irresponsible owners or dogs who attack/kill.

Yet again, the major animal organisations appear to be at odds, simply backing their own agendas on an issue which has not seen any real leadership from the organisations who were all in place when the original Dangerous Dogs Act was brought to law.

They got it wrong then and they’re getting it wrong again.