Unclaimed stray dogs put to sleep in UK if no home can be found

In Britain, all dogs must be microchipped, containing owner's information

By Behlul Cetinkaya

LONDON (AA) – More than half of some 17,000 stray dogs in the UK were reunited with their owners last year while 1% of them were put to sleep.

All dogs must be microchipped, containing the owner's information in Britain which is one of the European countries where stray animals are not seen on the streets.

People notify municipalities or NGOs when they find stray dogs on the street.

According to the regulations, stray dogs, which are taken under control by local authorities, are delivered to municipal shelters, if any, or to organizations or associations that have shelters, following the necessary care and checks.

In case of finding a stray dog, councils notify animal welfare and shelter organizations and try to find the dog's owner for a week.

During that time, dogs whose owners cannot be found via microchips, or cannot be taken to an association shelter, or cannot be adopted by a new person, are put to sleep.

Almost 44% of households in the UK have pets, that's why municipalities and non-governmental organizations ask dog owners to update the information on the microchip when they change their phone number or address.

Local authorities across the country collected 17,243 dogs from the streets from April 2021 to March 2022, according to data by Dogs Trust NGO.

A total of 54% of these dogs were returned to their owners, 8% were adopted by new owners, 21% of the dogs were taken under protection by the NGOs and 240 of them, equal to 1%, were put to sleep.

The report said that the number of collected dogs in 1997 was 140,000 across the country.

Speaking to Anadolu, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) official Chelsea Munro said that NGOs cannot receive every dog from municipalities due to lack of resources and lack of shelters.

PETA encourages adopting dogs from shelters, not buying them because shelters are already crowded and thousands of dogs need new homes, she noted.

Buying dogs every time exacerbates this problem, added Munro.

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