I had insurance with my previous dog and I am so glad I did. In 8 years, they paid out over £7000 on him. When he died at 12 years old, his premiums were still under £20, maybe because he was a cross breed. Our puppy is insured but our 11 year old staffie isn't.  My husband didn't insure him after he moved in with me and trying to find a decent price for him now isn't easy. We will pay whatever vet fees are needed for him as opposed to insuring him at this late stage.

In a way, the license is a good idea, but I agree with everyone else on how it would be policed. The other thing to do is to try and get rid of the bad breeders, how this can be achieved, I have no idea and whatever method was used, you would still get some that would breed illegally.

I know I'm not getting much sleep at the moment so my brain is slower than ever but I seem to be missing a crucial point.  I just can't see why a licence would make things better.  Please humour me and give me reasons why a licence is a good idea.

Whilst on the face of it I would say that a licence (preferably providing 3rd party insurance) is a good idea I know that it will never be enforced and just become another tax on the middle classes. If you remember after Dunblain the gun laws were tightened up so that you need to go through hoops to prove that you are a fit person etc. Well since then the level of gun crime and the number of illegal guns in the country has more than doubled. If licencing cannot be made to work on this then I really do not believe it will ever have any effect on dog ownership. Oh and it is also now cheeper to buy an unlicenced weapon than a licenced one.

Having 3rd party insurance is a good idea but you don't need to have a licence for that do you?  I totally agree with you regarding the gun licence law but as you say it is to ensure that the people who own guns are fit to do so.  How would you apply that to a dog licence?  Are pro-licence people saying then that the licence would be a way of assessing if people were fit to own dogs?  How would they do that?  What criteria would be used?

I can only imagine that this would encourage more unscrupulous puppy farms who would be willing to sell 'under the counter' so to speak.  Good breeders already screen potential buyers. 

Sorry still not convinced

My point exactly. If you have strict rules that mean somthing then a proportion of people will choose to ignore them and hence create a black market, this will take a significant level of resources to counter. If they cannot do it on something that really 'matters' to society like guns or drugs, there is no possibility of their being able to do it for something as relitively unimportaint as dogs.