Hello

As the title suggests I am going to Parliament in October with SOFA the group of school children who are trying to make microchipping compulsory......

Funnily enough I just recieved this link below from Number 10 in response to a similar petition known as Dollys Directive which wanted to make it a requirement for every organisation coming into contact with dogs to check for permanent ID.

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page16598

As expected it was a woolly answer that basically says no they wont consider it. Interestingly one of their points was cost to smaller organisations/charities to purchase the scanning equipment. Now I admit to knowing not much at all really , but I would have thought the cost of keeping dogs in kennels, cost to the local authority etc would far outweigh the £80-£100 it costs for a scanner???

I think we are pretty much going to get the same stock answer from Downing Street on SOFA petition too so we are going to really do our research and cover these points in the Q&A session they are letting us have.... Can anyone help with any facts and figures or really good 'for' arguments - especially any of the smaller rescues so they cant use you as an excuse.....can you think of any negatives so we can try and be prepared for those too. The school children are really trying to do their homework beforehand so they will be taken seriously!

I know this link has been posted already but if anyone hasn't signed please do and forward to as many people as possible. To really be taken seriously SOFA needs 20,000 sigs to be able to present to Gordon Brown. At the moment there are only 2,400 + which means it goes to a local MP.... Thanks so much

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/compul...hipping-of-dogs

can you do research into the countries who have made it complusory and get there figures before and after, and maybe interview a rescue or similar as to how it has improved there job etc?

SIGNED

Signed

Signed

The thing about Dollys Directive is that most of the businesses that make a profit from microchipping our dogs are the ones who refuse to scan every dog on their books. They charge us to microchip our dogs but won't help find them when they go missing. If it was one of their own dogs that went missing, I'm sure they'd have a change of heart.

My dogs are chipped but microchipping will only work properly if all vets scan all dogs and all local authorities scan road kill victims (they don't all scan at the moment). Some members of the public think if they find a dog straying, they can keep them or dogs can be stolen and sold on to an unsuspecting person. These dogs will probably be visiting a vet at some time but, as vets don't scan new customers, no one will ever know that someone is desperately trying to find this missing dog.

I have signed though.

Chris