I have lived in France for a number of years and it has been law for some time now that all puppies sold must be micro chipped and have had their first vaccination before selling.
I think this is fantastic as it has benefits on so many levels. 

It means all puppies must be 9 weeks before selling.  The aim of this system is that eventually nearly all dogs will be identifiable in France.  This is particularly important when it comes to dangerous and abandoned dogs as the owners will be identified.  The system is also wonderful for lost dogs- police and vets all have the scanner to identify dogs with chips.

The system worked wonderfully for a friend of mine whose dog went missing whilst visiting someone - 2 years and 4 months later a phone call reunited him with is beloved dog. 

Good inprinciple but how is it policed?as this is where many good schemes fall down Thinking byb in particular. Also there are problems with first vaccinations before leaving breeder which can mean pup has to be revaccinated from start by new owners vet as it should be same manufactures vaccine. I think a lot of us chip now but this does have to be updated if owner moves and as properly regulated. Ie through dog license which often the less responsible owners will not bother with

Not such a great idea for my (and other) large breed not to be able to go to new homes untill 9 weeks of age. My pups are usually off at 7 1/2 - 8 weeks old and have been very settled in thier new homes quickly at this age. Maybe people in France ar better at complying with rules, not so many BYB and puppy farms as in the UK but I fear that those good breeders will as usuall folow instructions if it were law in this country but the bad breeders would continue to do as they please !!
Aileen

Not a great idea for my breed either, but I'm sure like would happen in the UK, there are many that don't do it in France? 

Selling a puppy with just the first vaccination is a really bad idea. Chances are you won't find a vet with the same brand vaccine and will then have to start from scraych with a different brand, delaying socialisation by weeks and the pup will have had an extra vaccine for nothing. Its either go at 7 wks with no vaccinations or past 10 wks with both, so really only suityable for toys.

A similar question re microchipping was asked on another board and this was my response copied and pasted now on here. It would not cost too much to implement as Councils are already responsible for licensing dog breeders once they exceed 4 litters in a twelve month period. Here goes.

The simple solution as I see it is the following:- Make it compulsory by law for anyone who has a female dog who wishes to breed from her to apply to the Council for Casual Dog Breeding Licence this will enable this person to breed from their dog just once and then the dog must be spayed details of spaying from Vet to be submitted to the Council, together with details of the female dogs microchip number, licence number. All puppies must be identifiable before sold or if kept by the owner. Full details must be passed to the new owner and licence number must be available on any adverts by breeder or dealer/pet shop. Anyone wanting to breed from more than one female dog could apply to the Council for a Commercial Licence with the same as above applying but would need to have the female dog spayed after 4 litters with verification going to the Council via their Vet who carried out the spaying. The one massive problem we have at the moment is over breeding, lack of full identification of puppies from birth and irrefutable identification of both dog, puppies breeder,owner. This method would make the full responsibilty of the birth, identification and licensing in the hands of the breeder. Anyone owning a female dog/dogs that was not identifable and producing litters of puppies not identifiable would then be in breaking the law, if they were to be found selling or advertsing puppies for sale without identification and their dog breeders licence number. The new owner would transfer the microchip number to themselves and then be placed in the same situation should they wish to breed from the dog. I suggested this ages ago and was highligted in the dog papers Our Dogs/Dogs World. It would cover back yard breeding and commercial breeding.

Cont: At the moment anyone can breed from their dog up to an including 4 litters in a 12 month period and there is no compulsory identification in place for a breeder to identify their dog or the puppies they sell. This is a massive loophole that needs closing. It allows back yard breeding by Tom Dick or Harry and allows the commercial breeders to flaunt existing legislation and inbetween the hobby breeder or ocassional breeder to not be answerable to anyone. Legislation is needed to capture all, at the root of the problem the person who breeds and produces litters of puppies. That must include both responsible and irresponsible for identification purposes place everyone on an even platform and work from there. Leaving the responsibilty to the owner of a dog will not work it is to long down the chain of events. Start at the beginning with the person who brings the puppy/puppies into the world.

My pups are allowed free access to their mum and are suckling still at 8 wks when they leave - the last litter I had 3 of the 7 pups sold had their first vacc within 3 days of leaving mum and had titre tests to ensure the vacc had taken, 2 of these 3 had to repeat the course as vacc wasn't sufficient to cover parvo, most probably because they were still covered by mums antibodies from her milk.  This also meant they were not allowed out freely until 13 wks - I will now advise owners to wait at least a week after leaving before their first jab to hopefully avoid it happening again. If I were to vacc before leaving this would mean restricting access to mum for a period - something I am most certainly not prepared to do before 8 wks. If I was to buy a pup I would much prefer to have my own vet use the most appropriate vaccination regime for the risks in my area.
As regards microchipping all my pups are done at 7 wks before leaving giving me time to ensure all the paperwork associated with the changeover is prepared and sorted prior to the pickup of the pup when the excitement of a new baby may cause things to be forgotten.

My only argument with you would be your definition of anyone breeding more than one litter from a bitch as commercial, and requirement to spay?

By all means  have compulsory identification of puppies be law (most responsible breeders already tattoo or microchip their pups, and I want that choice of method),

A requirement of a hobby breeder registration (not License) for all those not requiring a commercial breeding License, would be OK (but can't see teh point) but it still wouldn't tackle the enforcement problem, as the same ones who are irresponsible now would not bother with even this.

The responsible using the KC registration system are already traceable.

I think it's an excellent idea that all pups should be permanently identified with a microchip, or tatoo, and it's likely to go that way in the UK. Everyone should be accountable/traceable for what they produce. There are always going to be problems policing a system.

I think it's an amazingly BAD idea for first vaccinations to be compulsory before selling. So many issues. Some - different types of vaccines are not necessarily compatible, this may cause non protection when protection is thought to be there (possibly fatal) or may require the first vaccination to be repeated - I'm not one for pumping young bodies full of chemicals. There are differing opinions when the best time to vaccinate ... a vet having one of my pups asked if he could vaccinate his puppy at 6 weeks of age (standard in his practice) a very firm NO was given (he wasn't getting her until 10 weeks of age). Many people/vets recommend first vaccinations at 8 weeks. I will not give first vaccination until 10 weeks.

We already have a microchip system in the UK. Sadly some police/highways authorities/railway authorities/dog wardens don't appear to have heard of the very simple little device called a scanner :-(

I'm not sure waiting 2 years and 4 months for the return of a lost dog is the best citing as a 'system working wonderfully' ;-) It worked, eventually!

But, yes, I am all in favour of identifying puppies before they leave the breeder - no matter who that breeder is (bearing in mind that anyone allowing a litter of puppies to be born then IS a breeder). Policing, whether in the UK or in Europe, is always going to be difficult.

I wouldn't want to chip my toy breed at 9 weeks, let alone some of the really tiny toys. I did have one chipped once at that age as he was going abroad, but given the choice I would rather wait. Ditto what others have said about the vaccinations too, I would rather they had both or none at all.

I wouldn't want to chip my toy breed at 9 weeks, let alone some of the really tiny toys.

Why? It hurts less than vaccinations, and with toybreeds being targeted so much by thieves, the sooner the better. I have no problem at all with chipping at 4-5 weeks and my toy pups are a lot smaller than yours. :)

I have no idea why the 9wks requirement.  Gundogs which are docked in the UK must be microchipped before leaving the breeder and are often chipped when they are docked at 3-ish days old.

Perhaps mine are just cowards - they make enough fuss with the vaccinations, and goodness knows they make a huge fuss when I have them microchipped at around 6 months. Last time I waited until I had to have a couple of retained puppy teeth removed and had her chipped while she was knocked out!

the youngest I had mine chipped was 7 weeks, and several at 12 weeks, noen turned a hair.  The most fuss was made by adults.

The discussion on the other board was in relation to identification, microchipping and licensing anyone owning a dog.  My suggestions were in relation to this. If the responsibilty and onus was placed on the breeder (every person that breeds from their dog)to not only identify all their puppies before they were passed to the next owner but also have the need to register with the Council by applying for a casual licence to breed just once and then prove that they had their dog spayed by the vet contacting the Council where the individual received their licence. It would surely prevent a lot of repeated back yard breeding.
I cannot see where a problem could be if this applied to everyone that wished to breed but there has to be a facility for anyone to breed from their dog more than once that is why I suggested a commercial licence and the only way to prevent anymore than 4 litters would be proof of spaying.

This is the only way I can think of to tackle identification is if the responsibility lies with the breeder the person that produced the puppy. It is the only way I can think of to curb overbreeding, backyard breeding. It would also cover battery dog farming.

Having more than one litter from a bitch does not equal commercial breeding though.

In fact the average bitch having four well reared litters, would cost more to keep through her breeding life than any surplus after rearing expenses, made from the sale of her puppies. Few breeders have the maximum number of litters anyway (hard to fit that many in from age 2 - 7 in between showing/working her and giving a good rest between).

A bitch does not need to be spayed to not be bred from. 

The choice of neutering or not should be the owners, especially as there are negative health implications in many cases (see the thread on spay incontinence).

Now if we are saying neutered dogs should be exempt from licensing then I agree, but I don't agree with dog licensing, as there is no benefit for the dog owner or dog.

When we pay road tax we are paying for the use of our roads, council tax we get our bins taken away, street lights etc.

A dog License would simply be a tax on the responsible, and unless very high would do little to deal with the irresponsible and simply be swallowed up by the LA in their budgets.

>the youngest I had mine chipped was 7 weeks, and several at 12 weeks, noen turned a hair.  The most fuss was made by adults.

I agree, puppies are in a state of befuddlement and confusion and don't know where their own tails are - much quicker to chip then, than with alert adults who are already wary of vets.

Most vets seem to think the smaller the breed the more likely they are to scream blue murder when microchipped, I have been present for about 10 mini long dachsies being chipped ages 9 weeks to 2 yrs and not one of them has flinched much to the surprise of the person inserting the chip as they are used to much bigger tougher breeds reacting quite badly.

Brainless I understand the point you are making and the reasons for doing so. However the RSPCA has for example stated that they would like every dog owner to microchip their dogs but there is no absolute certainty that every dog owner will be responsible and do this at a later date after purchasing a puppy. A way has to be found to ensure that this is carried out as early as possible therefore before the puppy is sold to its first owner and still on the breeders property. If this breeder had to apply for a casual breeders licence with their Council then the Council would have a record of the breeder and the spaying of the dog - therefore no more litters from this female.
Whilst I know that at present the commercial licence does not kick in until a breeder has produced more than 4 litter in a 12 month period. It does however leave a very, very large number of breeders who are unaccountable, their dogs and litters they produce. Some of course will be breeding ethically and identifying their puppies before sale but many will not.  There must be way found to make everyone accountable and responsible for identification purposes and the easiest way for this to be I thought was to kick off the commercial licence for anyone wishing to breed from more than one dog. Maybe another word needs to be found instead of commercial that has the same effect making everyone accountable by identifying puppies before sold. Casual for a one off litter intermediate for anyone wishing to breed from more than one dog and no more than three and commercial dog breeding licence to start with 4 dogs or more. Remember too that many premises have over a hundred female dogs and one nearly 200, somehow there must be a way found to make all breeders responsible  (both good and bad) by ensuring their name is on the microchip before the puppy is sold.

Whilst it sounds like a great idea there is one area where I think it might not work.

Miss Smith has a lovely little dog, everyone says so and several have asked her if she is going to have puppies.  So Miss Smith decides that Frou Frou will be mated on her next season to Rex, after all he's got a lovely temperament.  They have the puppies, advertise them in the local pet shop and online and all the puppies go to new homes.  Not one is microchipped.  How will the council even know Miss Smith has had puppies?  How will they enforce their licence?  They don't have the manpower to check all the websites, local papers, pet shops, vets etc for puppy adverts.  You are relying on Miss Smith to tell the council she has /is planning a litter from her bitch.  If you cannot trust her to microchip (after all isn't that why such legislation for a licence would be required?) then how can you trust her to get a licence that will cost her even more?  And you cannot rely on vets as so many litters are born with no vet involvement at all.

You don't need a license in order to chip or tattoo pups before leaving, I have been doing it voluntarily for 20 years.

The requirement to ID is enough, the ones who won't do it would not apply for the license either, and how would you catch them?

If it is when new owner goes a to vet with pup, then fining the breeder for non compliance for ID'ing could be done.

>If this breeder had to apply for a casual breeders licence with their Council then the Council would have a record of the breeder and the spaying of the dog - therefore no more litters from this female.

Why???

The breeder may well be responsible, not want to spay their  bitch for whatever reason, or quite justifiably want to breed from her again.  This does not make them a commercial breeder.

If the statistics in USA/Canada are to be believed the major cause of the welfare issues re homeless dogs is the one off litter followed by commercial breeding and selling.  Responsible and Kennel Club involved breeding amounts to only around 10% of the puppies bred.  I think our Kennel club cam out with similar figures re the percentage of puppies bred by KC involved breeders.

So why are various groups actually encouraging one set of well meaning/ignorant of the consequences poor breeders, and wanting to tie up the only group of decent breeders.  You can bet the government does not want to restrict trade by restricting large scale commercial breeding.

If the responsibilty and onus was placed on the breeder (every person that breeds from their dog)to not only identify all their puppies before they were passed to the next owner but also have the need to register with the Council by applying for a casual licence to breed just once and then prove that they had their dog spayed by the vet contacting the Council where the individual received their licence. It would surely prevent a lot of repeated back yard breeding.
I cannot see where a problem could be if this applied to everyone that wished to breed but there has to be a facility for anyone to breed from their dog more than once that is why I suggested a commercial licence and the only way to prevent anymore than 4 litters would be proof of spaying.

sorry but this just wouldn't work as the people who don't comply with good practice now simply would continue not to do so :-(

I'm not a commercial breeder, it's not practical to have all the health tests and 'only'  have one litter unless nature etc dictates.... I don't want to be told when to spay my bitches thanks and nor do many reputable people :-(

>Selling a puppy with just the first vaccination is a really bad idea. Chances are you won't find a vet with the same brand vaccine and will then have to start from scraych

But that isn't true any more thankfully, I had this email from Virbac when I was trying to find a vet locally that used the same vaccine after my pup was brought home after the first injection only.....

I can hereby guarantee absolutely that Canigen dog vaccine is exactly the
same as Nobivac - just a different label. If you have any trouble in this
regard please ask your consulting vet to contact us at 01359 243243.



Best regards



Chris Taylor BVSc MRCVS

Technical Director, Virbac Limited

Tel: 01359 243 243

Fax: 01359 243 200

That is just one vaccine manufacturer and their brand, loads of others are used.

I can hereby guarantee absolutely that Canigen dog vaccine is exactly the
same as Nobivac - just a different label.

Makes no huge difference. Like Brainless says, it is just one vaccine, and others are saying they can only guarantee/stand by the result if their brand is used both times -after all, why would they want to get the blame if something went wrong and the pup had had two different brand vaccines? And how many vets would take the time to contact vaccine manufacturers and get assurances in writing? Chances are they would just say sorry, we don't carry that brand so you have to start from scratch again.

> Why? It hurts less than vaccinations, and with toybreeds being targeted so much by thieves, the sooner the better. I have no problem at all with chipping at 4-5 weeks and my toy pups are a lot smaller than yours.

From my own experience,  anecdotal reports from others with toy breeds and some vet input too smaller breeds chipped young seem to have more chance of chip migration.  I try to leave mine till at least 16 weeks for pups who go failry locally and go out and chip them at 4 months in new homes.  Of course, those going further afield I chip before they leave me.

With the new mini chips I may be happier doing them at 8 weeks, and am certainly happier about the needle size for a tiny pup.  No idea, as yet, if they too will be subject to movement as the pup grows.

Yes, they are more likely to migrate.  But it hurts the pup less, the younger they are.

I have many, many puppy owners come to class who have had to restart vaccinations again because the breeder had already given the 1st jab.  Certainly vets here are restarting vaccinations from scratch.

And regardless of whether they have had a single litter, I wouldn't want to spay a bitch before the age of 6/7yrs nor to be told I had to by some piece of legislation.

I do find it difficult to comprehend when every one calls for an end to back yard breeding/puppy farming/battery dog farming that involve irresponsible dog breeding that something as simple as a registration for a dog breeders licence is felt to be so dissagreeable. It requires a one off litter and then the female dog spayed to prevent more litters. The other licenses state 4 litters or could 5 then spay or could be spayed before rehome if that is more reasonable.
This was something that I thought could be worked upon, think about the backyard breeding for the status dogs as the media likes to call them and then sold to Tom, Dick, Harry and before anyone says they would not apply for a licence but in time if all breeders had to microchip their puppy the person that did not apply for a licence to breed would be identified through their puppy who was microchipped before sale, that now as an adult has produced a litter of puppies. If the breeders licence number or ID  was compulsory on all ads then anyone reading an advert for puppies for sale could check with the Council. What happens when a dog atttacks,  the owner is said to be always to blame - there is never any responsibilty placed by the media or Courts on the person that bred from the parents of that dog, who may have had a severe temperament problem, this I thought would eventually be one way of identifying such a breeder.

Just ideas really to try to find a way to capture everyone in identifying their puppies/dogs. Maybe someone can make other suggestions - of course stop puppies sold from dealers/pet shops third parties will always be top of my personal list. 

      

I have very strong views on casual breeding by pet owners. However I do not think liciencing will have any effect as those who do not follow the "Collar with identification" rules now will not take a blind bit of notice of any new rules.
I would like to see advertising of all puppies banned from local papers/shops/web pages etc. Every puppy bred to be perminantly identified by tattoo.chip etc, before sale. I think pups should only be sourced through breed clubs or working/shooting clubs and I would like to see a breeding certificate  being made compulsory before breeding which would cover breed type or working ability and suitablity for breeding. Every dog/bitch to have all available health testing done and have passed to a certain standard and a temperament test taken and passed There is very little need for mongrel or cross bred pups to be born as these days there are miss mate injections and dogs do not regulally run the streets like they did 30 years ago. If a litter is bred then all these requirements should have documentation which should be produced at the first vet visit before a pup is registered at the vets and those who do not have it should be investigated as to where the puppy came from.
Breed councils or working councils should shoulder the responsibility of keeping records.
Personally I cannot see any need to produce cross bred litters, others may well dissagree with me. We have a huge variety of breeds to do virtually any job you can think of and if people cannot find a breed that suits them they are not trying hard enough. The rescue kennels are full of cross bred dogs and much as I think those who like to take rescues on, and we sure need good loving caring homes for them, are saints, if we were able to drastically reduce the numbers being bred no one can deny it would be the best thing to do. To offer a good home to a rescue is comendable but  there just are not enough homes for the dogs in need.
But then I would like to live in an ideal world and no matter what you do someone will always find a loop hole and a way round the system.
Aileen

I think there are already too many pieces of legislation trying to tell us what we can and can't do.

The solution has to be to better educate buyers about where to purchase a puppy from, to ban the sale of puppies in pet shops and perhaps even to make illegal the transportation of more than X number of puppies at a time across borders (including UK/Ireland).  Target the problem itself, not the breeders who are doing the right thing. 

This whole obsession with spaying being a case in point:  Recent research finds that it is beneficial for the bitch to remain intact well up to the age of 6/7/8yrs due to the ovary exposure being related to longevity.  I'm not spaying any bitch of mine earlier than I have to, just because a piece of paper designed for dog breeders says that I should.  Even if I had no intention of breeding her, she would remain entire.

> if all breeders had to microchip their puppy the person that did not apply for a licence to breed would be identified through their puppy who was microchipped before sale, that now as an adult has produced a litter of puppies.

I don't think I follow:  Why, just because the adult is microchipped, is the council going to know that she has had a litter of puppies??  Breeding and rearing litters happens behind closed doors....

>What happens when a dog atttacks,  the owner is said to be always to blame - there is never any responsibilty placed by the media or Courts on the person that bred from the parents of that dog, who may have had a severe temperament problem, this I thought would eventually be one way of identifying such a breeder.

No, because you cannot prove that temperament issues are a result of breeding.  They could just as well be a result of the dog's bad experiences, or a result of 2 particular dogs bred together - each of which on their own have great temperaments - because that's how genetics works; unexpected things happen.  No accusation against a breeder holding them responsible for an adult dog's temperament would ever stand up in a court.

I don't think the solution is anything which should affect what happens currently for responsible breeders, it has to be legislation which only affects and targets those carrying out the dodgy stuff.

Those policing society are already stretched to their limits trying to uphold the laws we currently have.  Introducing more meaningless legislation which cannot be upheld is not going to help.