Urgent warning issued to all cat owners in the UK
A cat-tastrophe looms for some of the UK's pet owners as the deadline to get on board with a new law looms large.
Tomorrow (13 March) will mark one year on from a new bill passing through parliament which is supposed to help lost or stray cats be found more easily.
What are the new rules and when do they come into effect?
Basically, it'll soon be a legal requirement for all owned cats to be microchipped and the government estimated that of the nine million feline furballs in Britain, around 2.3 million weren't microchipped.
If they were to get lost, stolen or otherwise go astray it would be tough to reunite them with their owners, so getting your cat chipped is probably a good idea.
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More than that, by 10 June it'll officially be the law that if you own a cat it needs to be microchipped and if you don't do this you'll be punished.
What happens if you don't comply?
Speaking of punishment, if you don't have your feline friend microchipped by 10 June this year you'll be given 21 days to get it done or be slapped with a fine of £500.
Cat owners will need to get their moggy microchipped before they reach 20 weeks old under the new rules, and their contact details will need to be stored in a database.
Apparently this will help reunite thousands of pets and owners who become lost.
If your darling ball of purring fur goes missing your chances of getting them back are likely to increase.
The exceptions
The new rule doesn't apply to 'free living cats' that go about their business with little interference from or interaction with humans.
So, farm or community cats with no real owner don't need this, and feral cats are also exempt.
The change brings cats in line with dogs as far as having to be microchipped, though in the case of the canine companion you ought to have it done by the time they're eight weeks old.
If your cat is already microchipped, here's what you need to do
For the millions of cat owners who've already got their little bundle of joy and occasional scratches microchipped, just make sure your details are up to date so your pet isn't accidentally taken to the wrong place.
That'd be useful if your pet was the 'world's deadliest cat', as you'd want to make sure you could keep its killing spree under control.
However, even if you had one and things went a bit wrong you'd probably be alright, as liability tends to be a bit different for cat and dog owners.
Joe Harker