Scotland has followed suit, after a few months ago Wales became the first all-scanning nation in the world.
Now, all councils in both Wales and Scotland will have to have a procedure in place to scan cats found by the roadside, and return them to owners if a microchip is found.
Campaign group Cats Matter are thrilled with the outcome, and are encouraged to plough on with campaigning in Northern Ireland, and, of course, England.
Mandy Lowe, from Cats Matter said: “The result in Scotland means so much to us, and to the legacy of our cats who we sadly never got back from our councils. It's taken two years, but finally the number of councils in Scotland not scanning has dropped from 15 to 0, and we couldn't be happier.”
“It's tragic enough to find out your cat has been hit by a car and left in the road, but to never be notified and have the opportunity to say goodbye properly is heart break twice over. We are so pleased all Scottish councils will now scan and notify owners, and we would urge all cat owners to microchip their pets if they haven't already, and make sure details are up to date.”
Mandy continued: “We still have work to do in Scotland to make the current system the very best it can be, and we are working with MSPs to get a best practice guide out to all local authorities. This would be beneficial because it would improve any potential gaps in the system, from out of hours services and the advice they give callers reporting a cat, to storage times, giving owners with cats not microchipped more chance to retrieve their cat.”
“Overall we are very pleased owners will get the closure they need should the worst sadly happen to their cat, and are grateful to the Scottish authorities for agreeing with us that's cats matter.”
For more information, visit www.catsmatter.org
