To chip? Or not to chip? My 2c.

I personally like the idea of micro-chipping my dog & cats. I’m presuming that next time one of them goes missing, the SPCA will scan the chip & give me a friendly call to say they have my little Tiddles & could I go get him. Although theoretically, they can do that right now by looking up the number on the collar tag (for dogs anyway). In practise, I'm not sure they do.

What I don’t agree with is making micro-chipping compulsory on the grounds that it will stop dogs attacking humans. Um… exactly how will it do that?

A microchip is just like a plastic collar tag except that it cannot be seen, and it cannot taken out (very easily or humanely anyway) and put into another dog.

A micro-chip does not allow animal control officers to track the movements of dogs (as one journalist I read recently seemed to think). If a stray is found, it will have to be taken someplace that has a micro chip reader (vets, & SPCA typically have them these days), to see if it has a chip & if so who is the registered owner.

Because a micro-chip is invisible to the casual observer, dogs will still need a plastic collar tag as well. Otherwise how are animal control officers to even suspect a dog is unregistered?

The extra cost of chipping is not likely to encourage the owners of unregistered dogs to register & chip them. Quite the opposite.

Working dogs (of which farm dogs are a subset) currently command a lower registration fee than pets (so the notion of “one law for all dogs” has always been bullshit). Quite rightly too, so far as I know the fee is even tax deductible. If the chipping of working dogs is also to be mandatory, and I have no real problem with that, except I would expect there would also be a reduced fee. But when it comes down to it, I have a suspicion that the cost of these chips isn’t that different from the cost of a piece of moulded, engraved, coloured plastic, and so why shouldn’t the cost be absorbed as much as possible into already bloated dog registration fees?

But finally, I’ll go back to the question that is at the crux of the issue, and I’d love someone to answer it:

How will micro-chipping dogs reduce the incidences of dogs attacking humans?

Here’s a very good article (from, gasp! Investigate!) on the whole dangerous dogs thing.

And... UPDATE!

Because I've been over here ranting & even agreeing with most folk... here's what I think would be more effective than micro-chips.

1. Enforce the current dog laws - I have little confidence that the proposed laws will be enforced, because there is very little evidence that the current ones are.

2. Register the owner, not the dog. Shift the focus onto the owner. Treat dogs like guns.

Micro-chipping is a red herring. Although... I will be getting my dog micro-chipped. And all future cats.