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Alan de Enfield

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Interesting that those posting in favour of dog poo DNA sampling are not telling us how it is done. I am still trying to puzzle it out but I honestly can't see how it could be done. 

I think Covid has a lot to answer for in the dog explosion.  Folk who had never thought of owning a dog before, suddenly thought that if they had to take all the  exercise which the Government told us we should that it would be nice to take a dog for a walk.  This lead to owners of bitches seeing pound signs and mating their dog with  a male dog in the vicinity, never mind health testing or thinking about what they were breeding. The result was that the price of dogs went through the roof and when before you could buy a fully pedigreed dog from health checked parents for a few hundred you now had to pay thousands. So much for money being tight!  This resulted in a huge increase in the number of dog owners many of whom had absolutely no idea of their responsibilities or how to train their dog to be socially acceptable.  Ok, we had   a problem before Covid but it has certainly multiplied.

I don't know what the answer is but I agree that it is a big problem in some areas.

Edited by haggis
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When all animals defecate, we seem to have a particularly strong aversion to dogs' doings. We have a pretty good way of treating our own natural functions, but there has been better control of dogs, over recent years. Ok, nothing as bad as stepping in it, but if you've ever been walking in the country, it's fortunate for farmers that they aren't forced to follow the animals around with a bucket. You certainly can't avoid noticing that the animals aren't self conscious. 

 

 

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28 minutes ago, haggis said:

Interesting that those posting in favour of dog poo DNA sampling are not telling us how it is done. I am still trying to puzzle it out but I honestly can't see how it could be done. 

I think Covid has a lot to answer for in the dog explosion.  Folk who had never thought of owning a dog before, suddenly thought that if they had to take all the  exercise which the Government told us we should that it would be nice to take a dog for a walk.  This lead to owners of bitches seeing pound signs and mating their dog with  a male dog in the vicinity, never mind health testing or thinking about what they were breeding. The result was that the price of dogs went through the roof and when before you could buy a fully pedigreed dog from health checked parents for a few hundred you now had to pay thousands. So much for money being tight!  This resulted in a huge increase in the number of dog owners many of whom had absolutely no idea of their responsibilities or how to train their dog to be socially acceptable.  Ok, we had   a problem before Covid but it has certainly multiplied.

I don't know what the answer is but I agree that it is a big problem in some areas.

I'm not in favour or against tbh but I don't see how it's particularly difficult to set up, every new dog is chipped and a record of it's DNA is stored with it's chip record.

 

The practicalities of database management, DNA analysis availability and the costs aside (big aside I know but I'm just talking about initial set up), I don't see how, at least in theory, it's particularly difficult to do.

 

I suppose the idea would try to be self funding by legislating for a new form of dog licence

 

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37 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

I'm not in favour or against tbh but I don't see how it's particularly difficult to set up, every new dog is chipped and a record of it's DNA is stored with it's chip record.

 

The practicalities of database management, DNA analysis availability and the costs aside (big aside I know but I'm just talking about initial set up), I don't see how, at least in theory, it's particularly difficult to do.

 

I suppose the idea would try to be self funding by legislating for a new form of dog licence

 

I agree that if every new dog was chipped, given the necessary funding, a DNA sample could be taken and stored at the same time. The big problem is that although the law says all dogs must be microchipped ( and wear identifying name tags ) a very high percentage of dogs haven't been done or if they have, the details are not kept up to date. Having jumped through all the hoops to change a dogs microchip record it is not straightforward and I know many owners don't bother, especially when there is a cost involved. 

Legislation was brought in without the means of enforcing it and it is therefore worthless. It would seem logical for vets to report lack of microchips but the vet regulation body didn't want to become part of the process. 

 

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9 minutes ago, haggis said:

I agree that if every new dog was chipped, given the necessary funding, a DNA sample could be taken and stored at the same time. The big problem is that although the law says all dogs must be microchipped ( and wear identifying name tags ) a very high percentage of dogs haven't been done or if they have, the details are not kept up to date. Having jumped through all the hoops to change a dogs microchip record it is not straightforward and I know many owners don't bother, especially when there is a cost involved. 

Legislation was brought in without the means of enforcing it and it is therefore worthless. It would seem logical for vets to report lack of microchips but the vet regulation body didn't want to become part of the process. 

 

It's certainly the post sampling management that is the actual issue, I imagine for it to be of any real use the cost of any new dog licence would have to be fairly steep which would either put people off owning a dog or as you say many would ignore the thing, both results would I suspect mean a higher licence cost for those willing to pay.

 

Oddly for someone who does love dogs I have no problem with less of them being around, too many people treat them as fashion accessories or toys, saying that it would be awful if dogs became so expensive that they were just a luxury item, I was skint when I had my last dog and she helped me through some tough times.

 

I'm just waffling  ;)

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Not sure about numbers, but better trained dogs and owners would be good..... 

We had the honour of walking guide dog puppies some years ago and to see what a properly trained dog can do is amazing. 

Unfortunately it takes time and commitment and too many people don't understand that when they get a puppy... 

Nor do they research the breed they are buying to see if it will suit their lifestyle.... (or their lifestyle will suit the dog)...

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7 minutes ago, jonathanA said:

Not sure about numbers, but better trained dogs and owners would be good..... 

We had the honour of walking guide dog puppies some years ago and to see what a properly trained dog can do is amazing. 

Unfortunately it takes time and commitment and too many people don't understand that when they get a puppy... 

Nor do they research the breed they are buying to see if it will suit their lifestyle.... (or their lifestyle will suit the dog)...

I had the honour of being offered a guide dog when she was due to retire, losing the dog was hard for my friend but she wanted to ensure she would go to a good home and the owner thought of me, the dog was lovely and as you say so very well trained.

Unfortunately the dog had a heart attack a week of so before the new dog was to arrive, we were both gutted but I still remember how honoured I felt being thought good enough for the adoption, still do in fact :)

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1 hour ago, haggis said:

 

Legislation was brought in without the means of enforcing it and it is therefore worthless. It would seem logical for vets to report lack of microchips but the vet regulation body didn't want to become part of the process. 

 

As vets appear to be solely interested in screwing ludicrous amounts of money out of owners, I'm not surprised.

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9 hours ago, haggis said:

I agree that if every new dog was chipped, given the necessary funding, a DNA sample could be taken and stored at the same time. The big problem is that although the law says all dogs must be microchipped ( and wear identifying name tags ) a very high percentage of dogs haven't been done or if they have, the details are not kept up to date. Having jumped through all the hoops to change a dogs microchip record it is not straightforward and I know many owners don't bother, especially when there is a cost involved. 

Legislation was brought in without the means of enforcing it and it is therefore worthless. It would seem logical for vets to report lack of microchips but the vet regulation body didn't want to become part of the process. 

 

Our goldie is chipped but does not have a name tag. Although this is illegal, it is for security reasons; we spend months on the boat each year and the dog is very approachable. I don't want strangers learning the address of our empty property from the dog. It's like most risks (very small) but it worries me; a bit strange as I usually ignore other risks and tend to scoff at tales of 'dangerous mooring areas' etc.

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On 24/03/2022 at 08:50, Grassman said:

 

 

Dog licences in those days were ridiculously low hence the reason for scrapping them. If they charged a proper licence fee such as £50+ a year that would go a long way to funding the policing of it. People pay hundreds or even thousands of pounds to buy a dog so they can afford £50 a year.

Same for cyclist. But make it£150💷😜

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6 hours ago, haggis said:

Having jumped through all the hoops to change a dogs microchip record it is not straightforward and I know many owners don't bother, especially when there is a cost involved.

The issue is structural: there are a number of competing organisations which provide their own microchips and operate their own registration systems. If, like us, you've taken rescue dogs it's simpler and cheaper to rechip and reregister than to attempt to find and amend the original registration, particularly if your vet is a member of a different scheme from the original chipper.

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8 hours ago, frahkn said:

Our goldie is chipped but does not have a name tag. Although this is illegal, it is for security reasons; we spend months on the boat each year and the dog is very approachable. I don't want strangers learning the address of our empty property from the dog. It's like most risks (very small) but it worries me; a bit strange as I usually ignore other risks and tend to scoff at tales of 'dangerous mooring areas' etc.

I understand that and it made me think. Our dogs name plate has the first line of our address, our postcode, and our mobile and home numbers. Living several hundred miles from where we are likely to be boating reduces the risk you mention. I hope! What about just having your phone numbers on so that you can be contacted in the unlikely event of your dog going walk about? 

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20 hours ago, haggis said:

Interesting that those posting in favour of dog poo DNA sampling are not telling us how it is done. I am still trying to puzzle it out but I honestly can't see how it could be done. 

 

 

Like this for example

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-56324906

 

Yes it would be costly to make it compulsory and there would indeed be issues such as enforcement, but in the areas where they are trialling it there's been a huge improvement. Like with any scheme it needs investment and I suppose because it's an antisocial issue rather than lots of people becoming ill or dying from it, then local or national authorities won't be prepared to fund it sufficiently enough for it to work properly.

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10 minutes ago, Grassman said:

 

Like this for example

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-56324906

 

Yes it would be costly to make it compulsory and there would indeed be issues such as enforcement, but in the areas where they are trialling it there's been a huge improvement. Like with any scheme it needs investment and I suppose because it's an antisocial issue rather than lots of people becoming ill or dying from it, then local or national authorities won't be prepared to fund it sufficiently enough for it to work properly.

Thank you for posting  this.  I now understand  how it would work and I agree that it would go a long way to solving the dog mess problem . Would be expensive to set up and run through 

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On 28/03/2022 at 10:19, Arthur Marshall said:

Which is fine, but antisocial people have unchipped dogs, and loads are out of date. People move.

 

Indeed, and last year Petlog, operators of the largest pet microchip database "updated" their system and somehow managed to seperate the owner details from the pet microchip numbers ☹️.

 

It took me 6 months and threats of legal action to reunite me with my dog on their database, only for said hound to die and me then to have to delete him.

 

I suspect many microchip details are now out of date because Petlog didn't contact pet owners to advise them of the debacle, I heard about it from my dog trainer.

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