Dog owners must microchip their pet or face a €300 fine

Dog owners must microchip their pets within a year or face a hefty €300 fine, Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino announced yesterday.

The new regulation, which comes into force this week after “lengthy” consultations with the Animal Welfare Council, should help give the government a better picture of the pet population since of the 100,000-odd estimated dogs in Malta only 5,000 are registered.

Current practice obliges dog owners to register their pets every year with the police at an annual fee of €2.33. The microchip does away with this and costs €10 for neutered dogs and €20 for unneutered ones, the difference in rates meant to promote neutering.

“This means that with the microchip, registration will be cheaper,” Mr Pullicino pointed out.

The microchip, not larger than a grain of rice, is injected by a vet in the fold of skin between the dog’s shoulder blades and remains active throughout its lifetime. The vet then scans the dog and registers the number on the scan for the pet to be included in the national livestock database.

Owners of pets that already have a microchip will still need to ask their vet to register the dog via e-mail. Once the whole process is completed, owners would receive a certificate of registration by post.

“We have been feeling the need for better and more serious control of dogs,” Mr Pullicino said.

Homelessness was not only cruel to the dogs but also posed a public health problem, he said. The new system should control the “big problem” of strays because there would be more control on the abandoning of dogs and it would become easier to return lost animals.

The Animal Welfare Department would be carrying out random checks on people walking their dogs to enforce microchipping, he said.

The new regulations will also stipulate fresh conditions for breeders, who will have to register their practice.

“This is the first step we’re making. In the future, we hope to expand the practice with cats,” Mr Pullicino said.