An annual dog licence fee of as little as £21.50 could help reduce the number of strays and help tackle irresponsible dog breeding, according to a new RSPCA report released this week.
Owners would face a cost of less than 42p a week per dog – which the Society says is less than the price of an average chocolate bar – in order to provide huge improvements to dog welfare and dog control services.

The report – ‘Improving dog ownership – The economic case for dog licensing’ – reveals a licensing scheme could deliver resources to improve dog welfare worth in excess of £107.4 million. With an estimated 10 million dogs in Britain, they claims this works out at £21.50 per dog with a compliance rate of 50 per cent. A compliance rate of 75 per cent would work out even less at £14.30 per dog.

However, many readers still argue that such a move would only target genuine and caring dog owners and breeders, and leave the underlying problems untouched. One reader told us: ‘I was in my local park the other day with my Bulldogs. The park is in a fairly nice area and is used by children, dog walkers and the elderly. On this particular day, two young lads came in with two Rottweiler crosses, which were let off the leads as soon as the boys entered the park.

‘after the dogs had done their business in the park, (which wasn’t cleaned up, needless to say), they ran wildly around the park and were only captured by their owners after they had knocked down a child and frightened my dogs half to death.

‘Who, in their right mind, would ever believe that idiots like this would go down to their local post office and get a dog licence! And they are the ones we need to know about and be able to identify.’

Recommendations

The new report was written by the RSPCA’s director of communications David Bowles and is based on research by Reading University, which was commissioned by the Society.
It makes three recommendations in its conclusion:

• The government should establish a dog health and welfare strategy underpinned and funded by a dog licence scheme. This would fund resources to tackle the issues, such as strays, injuries caused by dog bites and the prevention of disease, as covered in the report.

• The scheme could be set at £20-£30 per dog annually, with discounts for selected dogs (e.g. assistance dogs, neutered dogs) and people (e.g. pensioners).

• Microchips would be used to identify the dogs, with details entered on a national database, improving dog ownership and reducing numbers of unwanted dogs.

David said: “Now is the right time to invest in the future health and welfare of Britain's dogs. A dog licence would raise money which could be targeted into improving enforcement of laws at a local level, improve the welfare of dogs and reverse the use of certain breeds of dogs as a status symbol or weapon.

“The dog licence would achieve three important goals. It would raise money for dog welfare, increase the numbers of responsible dog owners by getting people to think before they get a dog and start to reverse the surplus of dogs on the market by providing incentives such as reduced fees for neutering dogs.”

Behind

He added that the costs are given as an indication of what the licence fee could cover, and a dog licensing scheme could in reality be set at between £20-30 per dog per year – between only three and four per cent of the annual costs of owning a typical breed of dog.

Twenty-three countries in Europe currently have a dog licence or registration scheme. In some countries, such as Germany, Slovenia and the Netherlands there have been improved dog control provisions and low numbers of strays with compliance rates of more than 50 per cent.

“The RSPCA believes that Britain has slipped behind other countries which have started to tackle and solve the problems of dog over supply and only the introduction of a dog licence could ensure we catch up.

“In countries which have a dog licence it is seen not as a tax, but as an important part of owning a dog. In Britain we know that a dog licence is welcomed by two out of every three dog owners, more than 70 per cent of who are happy to pay more than £30 for the pleasure and responsibility of owning a dog,” added David.

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