Charmion asked, ”In re: dog licences — Whaddaya mean, “reimpose” the dog licence? You don’t have to tag your dog in Britain? Since when?”

In the UK, Dog Licences were abolished in 1987. The old dog licence was a bit of a joke costing, as it did, the princely sum of 37 pence (slightly less than one US dollar). A promise by the then government to introduce a formal dog registration scheme never came to fruition, although it is a requirement that dogs must have a collar with owners’ details when in public this rule is widely ignored.

Personally, I would change the law to require a licence costing at least £50 p.a. for every dog, but I suspect that such a move would result in huge numbers of abandoned dogs in our streets, and rescue centres would be totally overcome.