Microchipping in NI

Microchipping has now become mandatory in Northern Ireland. This has support from some organisations but the risks are also being exposed.

From the BBC article: "All dogs in Northern Ireland will have to be microchipped when their licence is renewed.

"I think it'll make a big difference to dog wardens," said Nicola [dog warden].

"It's another method of trying to track dogs' owners and get them home. Dogs' collars and tags can be lost and can be removed. The microchip is permanent, so it can be pretty helpful." "

"Last year in Northern Ireland, 1,615 stray or abandoned dogs were destroyed.

That is about one in six of the dogs in pounds - a much higher proportion than the UK average.

The Executive hopes that making microchipping compulsory will reduce the number of strays on the streets and mean fewer healthy animals have to be put to sleep."

However rescue centre 7th Heaven has raised some worrying issues:

"Everybody is promoting it – the RSPCA, animal sanctuaries, councils, vets and the media. You would be forgiven for thinking it is the holy grail of animal welfare, the panacea to cure the problems of abandoned and stray animals. What all these bodies fail to tell you about is the risks involved to your beloved pet when you decide to microchip, risks that could very well prove fatal.

Various scientific studies have shown that between 1% and 10% of laboratory animals have developed cancers around the microchip implant. Outside the laboratory there have been documented cases of cats and dogs also developing carcinomas at the implant site. This should not be surprising, as foreign body tumor genesis (the growth of cancer cells due to a foreign object being lodged under the skin of an animal or human) is a well established medical problem.

[...]

The spurious reason why micro-chipping was rammed down the public throats was because it would help curtail dangerous dogs. Apart from the fact this would involve forcing a law on everyone to address a problem created by a minuscule amount of dog owners, it is patently disingenuous as the sort of people that own dangerous dogs will simply not get their dogs micro-chipped or get them from illegal breeders.

The next reason wheeled out was that it would help if your dog was lost, but a collar with an address and phone number does the same thing. (If your dog is stolen, under the Data Protection Act, the company who runs the microchip database cannot legally tell you who has stolen your dog, so that argument is also fallacious. Having a microchip is not proof of ownership)

The next reason given is that it would deter people from letting their dogs roam. Well the only way to do this would be to fine the owners and to make it substantial but if you do that the owners would just take the dog to pound for rehoming or just take it to the vets to get put down which would probably cost less than the fine. If an owner doesn’t care enough and lets his dog risk being run over on the road by letting it wander around without a lead, then he doesn’t really care about the dog at all, so he isn’t going to pay any fines.

The idea was partly sold to animal sanctuaries because they were told it would help them re-unite the animals with their owners. There is one major flaw in this argument. The vast majority of animals, particularly dogs that 7th Heaven take in, from whatever source (and presumably this will be the same for most charities) are animals that have been given up by their owners. You can microchip a dog up to its eyeballs but you can’t re-unite it with an owner that doesn’t want it."

You can read more via the links and decide for yourself. Personally, I am discouraged from microchipping not only because I believe laws don't solve problems, are just lazy, and education solves problems, but I also would not want to support a company that uses animal testing.