Today El Reg covered this story about the The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals pushing for a national database of all dogs and for dogs to be chipped with the owner information. For the most part I’m not exactly for any kind of Big Brother national database, but this I think is a part of a really good initiative.

After taking in a rescue greyhound which has obviously had a terrible ordeal at the hands of some very cruel owners I’m all for this scheme and would gladly participate. It’s exactly because of the way that ex-racer greyhounds are treated in this country that I would be a strong supporter of this database, once racing greyhounds have lived out their racing career for the most part they’re just seen as an unwanted, disposable commodity which has no further value or monetary worth and are quickly abandoned. The fewer others are lucky enough to be used to stud or breed – but even after they’ve lost this value they’re seen as being useless and disposable.

A scheme such as this may help reduce the abandonment and mis-treatment of retired greyhounds as well as reducing overall mistreatment of the species.