People are being reminded of the importance of micro chipping dogs after council officers picked up more strays in November than any other month this year. Microchipping has been law since 2015, but despite this Nottingham City Council is still finding dogs that have not been microchipped, or many of those microchipped have not updated the registered details.
For example, details not being updated if the owner has moved house, changed their phone number or is no longer the dog's owner. This makes it difficult for officers in the Nottingham City Council Dog Control Team, based at Byron House, within the Central Police Station in Maid Marian Way, to reunite pets with their homes.
In November just gone, the team picked up 25 animals from across the city, only three of which were reunited with their owners and 22 were sent to the kennels, where 13 have been reclaimed and nine - at the time of writing - remain at the kennels for re-homing. Only 12% of animals in November were directly returned to their owners, with the average for 2022 being almost 30%.
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Operations manager within Community Protection, Alex Cox, explained that the dogs not having microchips or having chips with outdated details is responsible for the rise. He said: "Nottingham City Council Dog Control Team continues to be busy; receiving reports of lost, found and straying dogs.
"Our aim is to get the pet home to its owner as quick as possible. The new problem we are facing is dog not having updated details on their microchips - this can be old owner's details, old addresses or old phone numbers.
"As well as chips not being registered in the first place or obviously no chip at all. The council will attempt to return seized stray dogs to their owners but, if we haven’t had a ‘lost’ report or the chip details are incorrect, the dog will have to go to kennels which incurs a cost to the council and the owner at the point of reclaiming their pet."
Mr Cox added: "Another issue we are facing is 'finders' not wanting to report to us that they have found a stray, they want to get it returned home without our support and input, including scanning for a chip, by using external social media sharing. This is great but we must be informed as its likely the owner has or will complete a lost report to us."
The team have used social media for almost a decade to share found and lost dogs in the city, and have more than 26,000 followers. They ask that people report their dog as missing or report a found dog to the local authority as soon as possible.
Pet owners are being asked to make sure that their pet's details are up to date, which is done by the relevant microchip company. Owners are also being reminded that it is still required by law for dogs to wear a collar and tag.
Speaking recently, Mr Cox added: "During the current month of December to date we have picked up 19 stray dogs and only four have gone straight home, seven have been reclaimed from kennels by owners, with eight currently still there within the seven day holding period. On a good month we would see nearly half the seized dog returned directly home due to having correct chip details and/or a lost report."
September was a good month for the team with only 14 stray dogs being found in the city. Of these six were returned to their owners, and eight were sent to the kennels.
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