Sale cat owners now risk £500 fines after microchip deadline passes
New laws introduced in June now make it a legal requirement for cats in England to be microchipped, but many pet owners are still unaware of the changes and could face fines of up to £500 for not complying according to White Cross Vets in Sale.
© White Cross Vets
The new law came into force on 10 June and means all cats in England must be microchipped by the time they reach 20 weeks of age and their contact details stored and kept up to date in a pet microchipping database.
Any owners found not to have microchipped their cat will have a grace period of 21 days to have one implanted and the legislation also applies to cats that live indoors.
Vet Tom Ward from White Cross Vets said: “In recent months we’ve been busy microchipping cats ahead of the introduction of this legislation, but we’ve already seen several cats in recent weeks that weren’t microchipped, so we’ve been explaining the new legislation to their owners, as well as its benefits.
“We regularly see cats that are lost or have been in accidents that don’t have a microchip, which would give us access to their owner’s contact details, so it can be impossible to find out where they live. Unfortunately, these beloved pets then end up in rehoming centres.
”Since this legislation was announced, more cats than ever before are now microchipped and as a result the number cats we are seeing where we can’t trace the owners is falling, so any owners that still don’t have their cat microchipped need to act now.
“Implanting a microchip, which is roughly the size of a grain of rice and lasts a lifetime, is a quick process and our clinics are currently microchipping cats at a reduced price or they’re free as part of our Complete Wellness Plan.
“Each chip has a unique serial number and whenever a lost pet is brought into us, we can scan it and cross-reference it against a pet database to obtain the owner’s details. However, this also means it’s vital that owners update their details if they move house or change their phone number.”
Is your cat microchipped? © White Cross Vets
This new legislation follows similar laws that were introduced in 2016 requiring all dogs to be microchipped by the age of eight weeks. Research by cat and dog rescue centre, Battersea, revealed the number of stray dogs that local authorities dealt with between 2016 and 2021 fell by 66 per cent.
However, in 2021 only 26 per cent of stray dogs that were implanted with a microchip had an up-to-date or accurate record of their owner’s details on an official microchip database.
