A pet owner is touting the benefits of microchip implants after his dog, which had been lost for more than 70 days, was found.
Microchip implanting is now required by law for every purchased or adopted dog. Owners who fail to have their pets microchipped face a fine of NT$3,000 to NT$15,000.
The owner, whose name was not revealed, said on Tuesday last week that he lost Gina, a shiba inu, in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) on Aug. 15.
Having been abused by her previous owner, Gina was a very shy and timid dog, the owner said.
He looked around and called animal shelters every day, the owner said, adding that he even consulted a pet psychic, visited temples famed for answering prayers and offered a large reward to find Gina.
None of those efforts paid off — but the microchip that was implanted when he adopted Gina did.
About one week ago before Gina was found, passersby on Taipei’s Huanghe S Road had spotted the dog and wanted to feed her, but she was too scared to approach people, the owner said.
Fortunately, a passerby notified the Animal Protection Office, which contacted him after scanning Gina’s microchip, he said.
The Animal Protection Act (動物保護法) requires owners to bring personal identification documents and their dogs to government-approved pet registration offices, such as veterinary clinics, for microchip implantation and information registration.
The information is uploaded to the Pet Registration Information System, where owners can look for lost pets by keying in the microchip number and the owner’s document number, as well as the physical characteristics of the dog, the time and location when it got lost, and update the current status to “lost.”
Pet owners should also update their information if they change address or telephone numbers to keep communication channels open.
Cat owners are encouraged, but not required to have their pets microchipped.
Gina, although not injured, lost weight, which dropped from 10.5kg to 5.6kg, as she had hardly eaten anything during the days she was lost, the owner said.
The owner urged all pet owners that “pets must be implanted with microchips, and relevant information must be updated all the time.”
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods