Busan is good

New dog registration system enacted for 2013

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All dog-owners in Busan are now required to register dogs over three months old with the city, under revisions to the Animal Protection Act. Dog owners must also attach an identification tag to their dogs when in public.  

The new registration system is intended to address the rising number of dogs that go missing or are abandoned each year.

Dogs over three months old must be registered at a designated veterinary clinic and bear identification tags in their district of residence. When registering their pet, owners are given three choices: an embedded RFID chip (KRW 20,000), an electronic tag (KRW 15,000), or an ordinary dog tag (KRW 10,000). Guide dogs and adopted strays may be registered for free, and a 50-percent discount is available for dogs that already have an RFID chip, for spayed or neutered dogs, and for dogs belonging to low-income families.

Failure to register will incur penalties: the first offense will receive a warning only, but fines of KRW 200,000 for the second offense and KRW 400,000 for the third offense will be levied. Pet dogs found in public without ID tags will earn their owners fines of KRW 50,000, 100,000 and 200,000 for first, second and third offenses respectively.

Dog registration and ID tagging are both mandatory. The law is expected to reduce the number of abandoned dogs by making owners more responsible, as well as making it easier to return runaways to their homes

Currently, registration and tagging is required only for dogs, not cats or other pets.

A city official said, “Busan City implemented its dog registration system in September 2009, the first time in Korea, so it is already well established in Busan,”   

For more information, please contact the Agricultural & Livestock Distribution Division at (051)888-3232