Do you think that dog owners should be licensed?

hi all,

I am so sick of hearing of dogs being pts because of the way they have been handled by their owners, all dogs can be well behaved and friendly if they have the right up bringing.

i was wondering about your views on having dog owners get a license before they can own a dog and make every dog tracable to its owner therefore under the license agreement the owner will have already agreed responsiblity for the dog and therefore the owner will be punished in court and not permitted to own dogs ever again if their dog should cause problems.

I doubt the government cares enough to even try to impliment something to protect the animals, but what are your views? good or bad?

yes i think people should have to buy a license to own any animal and it should be more than a few pence!!! animals are far to easy to get rid of nowadays if people had to be licensed maybe only the serious would get them and treat then right

Unfortunately the bad owners like the bad drivers would not bother to licence or insure their animals so it would only be the caring that would pay.

I am against laws that can't be policed or carry such a small penalty that people will take the risk. It would turn out that those who licensed would be paying for those who did not bother to be taken to court to be given a suspended sentence.

I mean that punishment for owning an animal without a license would be harsh, imprisonment in my opinion.

I totally agree. When the dog license was only 371/2p it couldn't be enforced. To have a licensing system which could be enforced would be nigh on impossible. As pointed out by Pita you only have to look at the number of unlicensed drivers to realise that only the honest would pay up. Not being licensed could well be a death sentence for many dogs. It is not even possible to have a dog id law. Look how many people move house or give their pet away without notifying Petlog or NDTR about the changes. In theory it is a good idea but it would, in my opinion, only penalise the good dog owners.

Its a good idea in principal,but you would always have a minority who wouldnt bother being licensed and your back to square one again.

Educating the public dont work so i really havent a clue what else!

It would have to be taken in context with other crimes, once again it would not be able to be implemented.

Yeah i agree you should have to have a licence
you hear so many horror stories these days that i don't think we have much choice
i also think that there should be much harsher penalties for animal cruelty than there is at the moment
for instance you hear of a person commiting extreme cruelty to an animal and they get banned from owning an animal for a few years; how come they aren't banned for life?
I think the law in this country stinks and it's about time that the law was revised

But that would not happen, society could not afford to have every dog owner policed and those who were without licence put in jail, and think about it, if the owner is put in jail what happens to the dog, it would be PTS. That is to say nothing of the people who could not afford to licence their dog(s), it would be very expensive if it is to pay for jailing those who do not comply, they would no doubt be forced to throw them out when the act became law.

I know there are many a problem with it, but I am sick with crying about dogs being pts because of irresponsible owners and am sick with owners who have one dog after another and sick with all the people who use their animals as a way to make money, be it breeding, fighting, or worse! Something needs to be done before the government bans more breeds of dogs because of stupid owners, have you seen how many breeds of dogs are banned in Germany? Thousands of dogs are being pts because they are a breed thats been banned and all the world will follow suit and we as a human race will end up making more extinct animals unneccesserily (sp?) It just really gets to me, maybe they should start putting irresponsible owners to sleep!