Philip Davies – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to tackle (a) dog theft and (b) dog fighting.

George Eustice

Any allegations of criminal behaviour should be reported to the police in the first instance, so that they can decide whether to instigate a criminal investigation.

We have also been working with the Pet Advertising Advisory Group who have been lobbying operators of internet sites to adopt minimum standards for the advertising of pet animals. This work includes identifying adverts for dogs used in organised dog fighting by spotting certain key or code words and removing the offending notices.

The introduction of compulsory microchipping for all dogs from April 2016 will help to reduce the chances of dogs being displaced, including through being stolen. It is already best practice for vets, re-homing centres, dog wardens etc. to scan strays and they have a duty of care to do so. Our guidance will emphasise this. But we also recognise that scanning all dogs can have significant costs and practical implications.