The NSW Pet Registry is not linked to any of the 5 other national pet databases. This means someone could steal your pet and bring it to (or from) NSW and their microchips wouldn’t scan in their new location. With any luck, your pet would end up in a new loving home. But equally, it could end up used as a fighting dog, or as bait, or sold into a puppy mill, or for any number of other awful scenarios. But no matter what, you’d be left heartbroken.



A real life example…



In 2013, whilst living in Melbourne, my girlfriend and I rescued the two most amazing dogs in the world. A Husky named Cali and a Labrador named Snickers. I registered them and paid the adoption fees, and they came to live with me for good.



In 2015, life took us to Sydney. But a year later, my ex and I split up. At first we shared the dogs, but then my ex changed her mind and I haven’t seen them in 10 months and counting. I’m now facing legal bills in the tens of thousands to win them back through the courts, and it’s something that could have been avoided.

You might be wondering how this happened, since I paid for them and they’re registered to me...

Well, just a few days after we split up, my ex went down to the local council and re-registered the dogs in her name. They already had microchips with my information, but the NSW registry doesn’t link to any other database in Australia. It’s the only one that doesn’t. So when their chips failed to return any information, she simply pretended they had never been registered before, and that I didn’t exist, even though both dogs had been officially mine throughout the rest of Australia since 2013. She wasn’t even asked for a change of ownership form.



It was negligent of the council not to ask why an 8 and a 5 year old dog had chips that had “not been activated", but moreover it’s a failure of the system that their chips didn’t scan correctly.



This is exactly what micro chipping is meant to protect against! How is it possible that the registries are not linked?



Please sign this petition to have Pet Registries (in particular the NSW Pet Register) linked Australia wide effective immediately.



Protect your pets from loss/theft.