Owners will have to tag their dogs to cut number of strays

Every dog in Britain is to be fitted with an electronic tag in a Government plan to tackle the problem of strays.

Every dog in Britain is to be fitted with an electronic tag in a Government plan to tackle the problem of strays.

Under a new national dog identification scheme backed by ministers, all dogs will have a microchip inserted, giving owner's details and a home address.

Tagging is expected to be voluntary at first, but made compulsory if the scheme fails to make an impact with owners after five years.

The move follows a month-long investigation by the Government's Dog Identification Working Group, which included the National Dog Warden's Association, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Kennel Club and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. The working group will publish the report in the next few weeks.

It will highlight the cost to police forces and local authorities of dealing with stray dogs, and suggest that owners have a responsibility to microchip their pets to help cut down on the 140,000 strays found on the streets each year.

Ministers were told that stray dogs cause around £30 million worth of damage a year through road accidents and attacks on humans and livestock.

The Government plans to hold public consultations on its plans for dog identification after the report is disclosed.

"The report has been a long time in the pipeline," said a Government source. "There is now agreement that the way forward is voluntary microchipping for five years. There should be a compulsory scheme if this doesn't work."

There is one stray dog for every 535 people in Britain and last year an estimated 17,000 were destroyed, according to the National Canine Defence League, which also sat on the Government's advisory group.

The number of strays is increasing in Britain, with 122,000 last year - of which fewer than half were reunited with their owners. Around 17,080 were found new homes by local authorities and 25,620 passed on to animal welfare organisations, such as the RSPCA.

Local authorities, whose dog wardens pick up strays, are obliged to keep them for just seven days before destroying them or passing them to welfare organisations.

Dogs are sometimes put to sleep before their owners can be traced, when animal welfare groups do not have enough space for them in their kennels.

Tagging, in which a microchip holding the owner's contact details is inserted painlessly into the dog's neck, enables the owners to be traced by scanning the chip with a hand-held reader. However, not all charities are totally in favour of the scheme proposed in the report.

"We don't believe in compulsory microchipping because it will be the people who can't afford it that lose out," said a spokeswoman for the National Canine Defence League.

But the spokeswoman added: "We take in just over 11,000 dogs a year. Microchipping means that if your dog gets lost it will be returned."