RE: Dog's Trust says no welfare benefit from dog licence

Jon Bray — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:06:25 GMT

I read through the RSPCA proposal and, indeed, their emphasis seems to be more that dog licensing be used to pay for the costs to society of dealing with problem dogs (wardens, treatment of bites) rather than dog welfare per se - they do mention the possibility of setting up a task force to deal with poor breeding practice but this seems to be more of an afterthought. I'd also be inclined to dispute their figure of £650 per year as the cost of owning a dog (excluding insurance).

I do agree that the dog license as conceived by the RSPCA would be unfair, as it would be the responsible dog owners which would end up paying. To make it properly fair you would need to make it difficult for people to get dogs without a license - in effect you'd need a kind of "logbook" as we have with cars.

I wonder if one could go a step further with the car analogue - having a "points system" whereby one's license could be revoked for repeated offences involving straying etc. A complicating factor would be that this license would have to take into account offences committed by other members of the household.

The police brought me a puppy about a year ago who had just been thrown into a wall during a domestic - his female owner was unable to bring him in as she was currently in A&E following the same incident. Had she not changed her mind and decided not to press charges there would still have been no protection for the puppy, as banning the wife/puppy beater from keeping animals would not have prevented him from living somewhere where others legitimately owned animals.