340 DOGS AND ALL ABOUT THEM

little pain as possible. The police must keep a proper register of all dogs seized, and every such register shall be open to inspection at all reasonable times by any member of the public on payment of a fee of one shilling, and the police may transfer such dog to any establishment for the reception of stray dogs, but only if there is a proper register kept at such establishment open to inspection by the public on payment of a fee not exceeding one shilling.

Another section enacts that any person who takes possession of a stray dog shall forthwith either return the dog to its owner or give notice in writing to the chief officer of police of the district where the dog was found, containing a description of the dog and stating the place where the dog was found, and the place where he is being detained, and any person failing to comply with the provisions of this section shall be liable on conviction under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts to a fine not exceeding forty shillings.

IMPORTATION OF DOGS

The power of making Orders dealing with the importation of dogs is vested in the Board of Agriculture, who have absolute authority in the matter.

The initial step to be taken by a person wishing to import any dog into Great Britain from any other country excepting Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, is that he must fill up an application form to the said Board, which he has previously obtained from them, in which he applies for a licence to land the dog under the conditions imposed by the Board, which he undertakes to obey.

On the form he has to give a full description of the dog, the name and address of the owner, the proposed port of landing, and the approximate date of landing, and further from lists which he will receive from the Board he must select the carrying agents he proposes should superintend the movement of the dog from the port of landing to the place of detention, and also the premises of a veterinary

THE DOG AND THE LAW   341

surgeon on which he proposes the dog shall be detained and isolated as required by the Order. An imported dog must be landed and taken to its place of detention in a suitable box, hamper, crate or other receptacle, and as a general rule has to remain entirely isolated for a period of six months.

MOTOR CARS AND DOGS

Unquestionably the greatest enemy that the dog possesses at the present time is the motor car.

Presuming the owner of the dog is fortunate enough to know whose car it was that ran over his dog, and to have some evidence of excessive or unreasonable speed or other negligence on the part of the car driver at the time of the accident, he will find the law ever ready to assist him. A dog has every bit as much right to the high road as a motor car. Efforts have been made on the part of motor owners to get the Courts to hold that dogs on a high road are only under proper control if on a " lead," and that if they are not on a " lead " the owner of them is guilty of negligence in allowing his dog to stroll about, and therefore is not entitled to recover : such efforts have not been successful. Even supposing a Court to hold that the fact of a dog being loose in this way or unaccompanied was evidence of negligence against his owner this would by no means defeat his owner's claim, for the law is, that though a plaintiff may have been negligent in some such way as this, yet if the defendant could, by the exercise of reasonable care, have avoided the accident, the plaintiff can still recover. There are several cases that decide this valuable principle.