Communication

I have recently started to Tweet and I have to say that although reluctant at first I have started to rather enjoy it. As a form of communication it can be what you want it to be — a way of getting information from people you respect, a mode of exchanging witty banter with friends, or a way of following stories as they develop. One thing that has particularly struck me is the number of dogs and cats that are lost or stolen — I know, of course, that this is in part a reflection of who I am following, but still every day a handful of lost dogs and cats appear, far more than the numbers of soft toys or wallets.

It has made me wonder what changes the microchip database companies and animal rescue charities have seen since April 6, when microchipping of dogs became a legal requirement. The Blue Cross ran microchipping events at their centres in the run up to the law coming into force, and microchipped a total of 1253 pets from March to May of this year; on average they usually chip between 60 and 70 per month, so clearly the awareness of the change in the law was good. Since April they haven't seen many pets coming into their rescue centres without microchips and have only chipped a handful in the last few months. Hopefully the impact of this is filtering through to the dogs that are lost, and more are being reunited with their owners; and hopefully it makes stealing dogs less appealing. Each year over 3000 dogs are stolen — in the past they have been sold on on the black market for vast amounts of money, held for ransom, or worst of all used as ‘bait dogs’ in illegal dog fighting. The fact that a dog is microchipped must at least have had an impact on the onward sales of stolen dogs?