Assembly.

Irresponsible dog owners should be made to feel the full force of the law, it was claimed in the House of Assembly on Friday.

In discussing amendments to the Dogs Act, which will see legislation tightened on the licensing and registering of pets, MPs on both sides of the House agreed that laws should be enforced and animal abusers punished.

Throughout the early part of Friday afternoon, Members of Parliament discussed changes to the Act which could see the licensing of dogs transferred to the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries from the Postmaster General.

The onus of registering dogs is also to be placed on the breeders, rather than the owners, within one month of puppies being born and laws are to be put in place to ensure dogs wear identification collars at all times, instead of just when outside of its home as at present.

Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell said the bigger picture of animal abuse, encompassing dog fighting, cruelty to dogs and the mindless breeding of dogs, should be considered, along with the micro-chipping of animals.

And he said consideration should be given to the Government utilising veterinary surgeons, by asking them to report on the well-being of animals and the ability of their owners.

But he also accused Government of failing to carry out proper consultation among the public, and other organisations involved in the care of animals, particularly dogs.

Government Whip Ottiwell Simmons said the problem was not dogs, but their owners.

And he voiced concern about the growing number of dogs considered to be in the dangerous category, which were not registered or licensed. These, he said, were the people to be targeted.

He said: "This is a very important piece of legislation. We want to encourage the public to take responsibility and make sure that the dog continues to be a man's best friend.'' Opposition Whip Cole Simons said he was concerned about the affect animal cruelty had on young people, with some parents even taking along their children to organised dog fights.

But he agreed that dogs only act in the way they have been taught.

Mr. Simons added: "If they don't do it properly, the law book needs to be thrown at them as hard as possible.'' He asked Government if it had considered introducing doggy passports, whether there would be a greater number of dog wardens employed and what measures would be in place to ensure animal abusers were dealt with severely by Police and other organisations.

PLP backbencher Elvin James said he owned dogs and found it frustrating in the past to find that, although he was registering his pets, no record could be found of them, making it a pointless exercise.

He said: "With the change there will be better record keeping. There will be better control. As I see it as a dog owner, there is no control -- only a paper exercise.

"But legislation alone will not solve the problems that we have.'' He said it was up to owners to ensure their dogs did not leave mess behind on the beaches and in parks.

That thought was re-iterated by Opposition MP Kim Young , who said the amendments should have included legislation that ensured owners carried bags or poop-a-scoops with them when they walked their dogs to pick up the waste left behind.

And she also raised concerns about pesticides, which can harm animals or children if picked up, and said she would have liked to have seen the legislation on the treatment of dogs completed together, rather than in stages as is proposed by the PLP.

Smith's South MP Trevor Moniz (UBP) said the legislation would be no use unless it resulted in prosecutions and those people found flouting the law being severely punished.

He said: "At the end of the day we have to get the conviction to stop this behaviour.'' Shadow Minister of Transport Erwin Adderley said improving the legislation was good, but there also had to be better dog impounding facilities provided on the Island.

"These changes are not going far enough,'' he said. He said, as it was, impounded dogs were not given 24-hour care or treated properly.

Opposition MP Patricia Gordon-Pamplin said she was disappointed that more consultation had not been carried out between vets and other people interested in dogs.

And she said the amendments to the Act were not comprehensive enough. She said owners should be forced to get public liability insurance and should be forced to clean up after their animals.

In response, Environment Minister Arthur Hodgson accused the UBP of criticising the Government without reason.

He said the new legislation was being introduced as a result of a report carried out by the UBP in 1994.

During that time, he said, a wide variety of people involved with the welfare of animals were consulted and their responses included in the report.

He said: "Having had that report, with that amount of consultation, was it then necessary for me to put it to the public? "Up until 1998 nothing had been done about it. I took it and released it to the public. We got to this in 18 months, when the other Government did nothing whatsoever in the years they had to deal with it.'' Opposition Leader Pamela Gordon retaliated: "The ground work was done and it still took you 18 months.'' She later said: "We started it for you. We did something right.'' Mr. Hodgson went on to say that mandatory reporting of animal abusers by vets was considered, but it was felt that it would be counterproductive as some people would refuse to take their pets to the veterinary surgeon at all.

He said doggy passports would be the result of the registering and licensing of animals, which automatically gave them identifications and he said he encouraged owners to get their animals micro-chipped.

Ottiwell Simmons Arthur Hodgson