England to mandate dog microchips by 2016
Thinking about injecting an identification chip in your pooch? If you live in the southern part of the UK, you won't have a choice. Come 2016, English and Welsh authorities will require all of the country's pups to have embedded microchips, so they can be returned to their owners if ever they run astray. The United Kingdom's Environment Department says some 60 percent of the country's 8 million dogs already have the tags, but beginning in three years, owners who don't spring for the device could be forced to pay fines of up to £500 (about $780). Cat microchipping will remain optional, since felines are less likely to wander outdoors. And "World's Cutest Dog" fans need not worry about their precious Boo getting the forced implant -- the famed Pomeranian (pictured above) is based in San Francisco, some 5,000 miles from the Queen's needle.
