Responsibility for irresponsibility: dog owners will face a new fine

Dog owners can be fined for their irresponsible attitude towards animals.  Punishment will follow in a situation where the owner gets rid of the dog, leaving it on the street.  It is proposed to suppress such behavior in order to prevent attacks of stray dogs on residents of settlements.

Senator Alexander Bashkin came up with the initiative. According to him, responsibility must be established both for the purchase of animals from unscrupulous breeders, and for leaving dogs on the streets.

Bashkin believes that the problem of attacks of stray dogs on people, including the fatal ones, is associated not only with the reproduction of animals, but also with the irresponsible behavior of people.

Such cases occur when the owner of the dog, for some reason, decides to get rid of the animal and simply lets it go.

The senator proposes to reconsider Russian legislation in this part and establish a clear requirement for the need to purchase animals from licensed breeders with the condition of mandatory chipping. In this case, when catching a stray dog, it will be easy to identify the person who abandoned it and impose an administrative fine on him (her).

The amount of financial responsibility, according to Bashkin, should be high in order to cover the costs of a dog’s staying in a shelter, as well as for its treatment.

As an additional idea in terms of changing the legislation, the official announced the introduction of a requirement for mandatory sterilization of an animal when it is purchased, if it is not bought for breeding, RIA Novosti reports.