Microchipping and registration requirements that were previously mandatory only for dog owners are now being extended to include owners of cats and ferrets. The government approved the microchipping and registration rules on Tuesday, including making exceptions for some groups of animals that can legally do without a chip for now.
In the future, all cats that are alienated from the owner or change their owner (sold, given away, etc.) must be chipped and registered. All cats over six months old that walk outside the owner’s territory, and animals participating in exhibitions must also be chipped.
As explained by the head of the Department of Trade, Animal Welfare and Feed of the Ministry of Agriculture Agia MedinaThe goal of microchipping is to ensure that as generations of cats change, as many pets as possible are microchipped.
At the same time, the Cabinet of Ministers’ rules contain a number of exceptions when microchipping a cat or ferret is not mandatory. For example, a cat that does not leave the apartment can live its entire life without a chip, but in the future, when the owner wants to get a new pet, it will most likely be a chipped and registered cat.
The exception also applies to cats living on farms in rural areas, if the animal does not leave its territory. As for street cats, it can be said that they already have their own “chip”, since homeless animals are marked by cutting off a piece of the left ear during sterilization, so there is no need to mark them with a microchip.
Source: www.gorod.lv
