Homeless Dogs

Rather than continuing to hijack the racing thread thought I'd start another one.
There is a huge homeless dog problem in the UK so what are your thoughts on how to reduce this?
I think the single most important thing which would reduce the numbers requiring new homes would be to ban the sale of puppies by third parties.
If all puppies had to be sold from the breeders premises then impulse buying would near enough be eradicated.
Secondly I think that there should be a compulsory identification of dogs, not a yearly licence, but just to make sure every dog has been identified and registered. This should be a requirement of sale of the puppy and not when in the hands of the new owner, i.e. done by the breeder.
Anybody else?
Becky

Perhaps a national register of breeders, pups can only be sold as pedigrees if from a registered breeder? Then number of litters etc can be monitored.What about free spaying and neutering through a national scheme?

Many charities do offer free neutering but for some reason many people, particularly men with male dogs, have issues with it.
Becky

Ive noticed now that alot of breeders now have new owners sign type of contract saying that they wont breed, will have their dog castrated/spayed and they are microchipped only in the name of the breeder. The microchip details are then changed after an agreed amount of time.

Personnaly think its a great idea. Responsible registered breeding is the key in my view. I believe that "getting a dog" is all to easy and some "breeders" are exploiting their dogs for money, Without thinking through the what ifs like...a dog being returned...or extensive vets bills when something goes wrong.

My males are all entire & have never been responsible for unplanned litters, the only dog I had to have castrated for medical reasons had major health problems as a result

There are not so many truly stray(ie homeless & ownerless dogs)dogs in the UK but there are a lot of straying dogs whose owners have no idea of responsible ownership, local dog warden told me that most straying dog owners think neutering will stop the dogs being a problem, which of course it doesn't

We have a major problem with straying foxhounds who go walkabout after exercise or hunting(drag of course)the only dog owners who never get charged for the return of their dogs of course are the masters/mistresses of hunts

Licensing owners before they can own a dog would reduce the problem of straying dogs as owners would have to prove they knew the law & how to comply with it

Microchipping only proves the owner of the chip not the keeper of the item that is microchipped & lots of breeders microchip their own dogs(which is open to abuse of course)so actually IMHO is somewhat worthless, there is nothing to stop a breeder getting chips cloned(very cheap BTW)& using one registration of chip to "ID"a lot of dogs if they do their own

Thats interesting i would have thought it would help keep dogs out for rehoming centres......I havnt heard of the cloning before though...thanks JoedeeUK

please can you point me to documented evidence of your claims JoedeeUK.

thanks in advance.

Claims about what ? Cloning chips Any maker of chips will supply identical chips if requested(done for making computers etc)& to actual clone a chip is simply a matter of copying one & duplicating it It is done every day, people who chip their own dogs wouldn't find it hard to get someone to clone the chips for them-I did say it was open to abuse-not that it had been abused yet. bring in compulsory chipping & it will happen & puppy farmers will be at the forefront of doing it

this is just your own personal opinion then? it certainly wasnt clear from the above.

I have yet to find any documentary evidence to support your assertion that microchipping proves only the owner of the chip, and I am sure there must be some, as you keep bringing it up.

It makes one wonder why rescue centres, and the government approves of their use at all (for Pet Passport)

I am genuinely interested.