Competition Time

Is your dog is a bit of an escape artist? Perhaps you are worried about being the unfortunate victim of a pet theft?

Thanks to our friends at Retrieva, creators of the world’s most advanced dog collar, we have one fantastic prize worth £299.99 to offer to our supporters this month which will hopefully offer a little bit of piece of mind!

The Retrieva Collar aims to help protect your dog from theft and loss, as well as offering you some personal protection. It works by using the website, your phone or a handheld receiver so you can track your dog’s movements and receive alerts if your dog travels beyond the boundaries that you set online.

The Retrieva tracking collar has been designed by looking at every aspect of a dog’s life and behaviour. It’s even waterproof so if your dog is a fan of swimming, it won’t interfere with their happiness! It is not just a piece of technology adapted for use on a dog; it can be used by pet owners, for working and field sport dogs, and also specialist functions for service dogs.

The collar features a locking buckle with automatic interference alert (via text or e-mail) if the buckle is tampered with whilst locked. It is made of anti-cut material with automatic interference alert (via text or e-mail) if any attempt is made to cut it and can alert the owner (via text or e-mail) if the dog roams out of any pre-defined safe area or enters a forbidden area.

To find out more about Retrieva, please visit their website.

To be in with a chance of winning this really useful prize, simply tell us in 25 words or less why you and your dog should be the worthy winners of this great prize:

“I should win the Retrieva collar because…”

Please email your answer, name and address details to becky.ridgley@retrievatracking.co.uk with 'Dogs Trust Competition' in the subject line.

The lucky winner will be awarded one Retrieva collar to fit the size of their much-loved four-legged friend and one years membership to the Retrieva website.

The closing date for entries is Monday 20th June 2011.

Is the Dogs Trust Chip Van visiting your neighbourhood?

The Dogs Trust Chip Van is on tour. No hot dogs or french fries from this van however - its campaigning for a change in the law.

The distinctive chip van is travelling all around the country, explaining to MPs and other politicians about the importance of microchipping. Dogs Trust wants the microchip to become a legal requirement in the way a collar and tag is.

Why is the Chip Van Tour important? Why do we want to see microchipping made compulsory?

• To improve the number of straying dogs that are returned to their owners.
• If there are fewer stray dogs as a result of being microchipped Dogs Trust will take fewer ‘8 day’ dogs from local authorities and can in turn rehome and make room for more dogs abandoned for different reasons.
• Welfare issues: cruelty, fighting, dog fouling - if a particular dog can be identified to their owner then the owner can be tracked down and dealt with.
• To support the draft DEFRA Regulation requiring all Greyhounds to be microchipped as part of the identification process.
• Dog breeding debate- the integrity of all the genetic tests that are done is completely valueless unless the animal can be identified. It is an essential part of integrity for the whole dog breeding debate.
• Microchipping is part of being a responsible owner.
• Allow the tracing of puppies to irresponsible breeders such as puppy farms.

The Chip Van Tour website will let you follow the progress of the van around the country, seeing who is supporting us and reading the blog to see what's happening.

Please note: The Chip Van is not on tour microchipping dogs! You can find out more about the process of microchipping process on the Dogs Trust website, including details of our low-cost microchipping.