> Things are improved quicker from within - that's the sensible, grown-up way to do things, not railing from the outside.
Totally agree I have said this from the very start of the ABS when it really was a complete waste of time.
I joined in those early days when it required all breeders to get their digs DNA profiled as well. I do think we will have to get all dogs DNA profiled eventually.
It would certainly help to have an option to take a DNA swab for profiling when I am doing eye testing.... One problem I have come across with the new rules for permanent id for all dogs is that sometimes a micro-chip will fail or a tattoo cannot be read. As yet I have had no guidance as to what to do if at an eye testing a dog turns up and we cannot read the chip or tattoo? Do we test this dog or not? It has been suggested that perhaps the dog can be tested but not get a certificate, but what is the point of that?
If we did all testing accompanied by a DNA swab for profiling then we could be sure the dog before us is the dog we think it is. Suppose a fraudulent breeder brings his dog 'Sam' to a testing session and it fails, next year he brings 'Bill' he says it is 'Sam' and because we cannot read the chip or tattoo we have no way of knowing is this dog really 'Sam' or is it really 'Bill'? We only have the breeders word for it that the dog is who he claims it is and he could equally claim it is not his fault if we cannot read the chip or the tattoo, that has never been used to identify 'Bill' from 'Sam'.
(note: before the new rules came in for health testing we did a trial run and we had 36 dogs who were micro-chipped, 14 micro-chips had moved inside the dog and two were unreadable, we had two with tattoos one we could read one we could not)