Harvey's law

[Catherine]

This is of relevance for our British members. Harvey is a dog that was killed on the road and no effort was made to find his owners who kept on searching. After 4 months a Highways officer them he had died the day he went missing.
They petitioned to change the law so owners have to notified and records kept. People want to know if their pet is gone. The not knowing is very hard on people.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/har...ts-5263897

It is good news for pet owners everywhere when one country takes our pets seriously. They are family. You would want to know if anything happened to a family member.

[LPC]

I wonder what happens in other countries. What about Canada, Catherine?

[Tobi]

Yes I had heard of this case.
Lost/found or deceased animals are very likely not to be scanned for a microchip! Now that sounds stupid, but it happens. Health department workers should always contact animal control, or in the UK the Dog Warden, or other animal control department, if they find a deceased pet. But they often don't.
Those microchip scanners are lightweight, easy to use, and anyone could carry one.

I know this would involve a little more work, but they should also note the appearance of the animal etc (in case no microchip is found) and check that on a database of reported lost pets.

So do they? My guess is -no.

[Catherine]

I guess they will have to pay attention now. It will be a law that a record must be kept of deceased pets.

Toronto has a city agency called Animal Services. They collect all deceased pets and other animals. As far as I know they keep records and notify people. I will have to look up what other cities do, but most have a Humanise Society or some type of shelter and they take in dead animals as well. They do have microchip scanners so they try to let the owners know about the pet. I am not sure how consistent and effort is being made.

The worst thing would be to not know what had happened to a missing pet.