Compulsory ID Chips for all dogs from 2016

It has just be announced that legislation will be introduced to make it compulsory for all dogs in England to have an microchip implanted. This is a great step forward in trying to combat the huge problem of stray dogs and irresponsible ownership. A microchip is a rice-grain sized transponder which is implanted just under the animal's skin; this chip has an individual number which can be read by a suitable scanner. The number is registered to the owner at implantation on a centrally held database.
This means that an individual animal can be linked to the person on the database. This helps hugely with helping returning stray dogs to their owners.