So yes, did you know that until 1987, you needed a licence to own a dog — and it cost 7 shillings? Another small detail from a time when the family dog trotted happily beside you, blissfully unaware it was the subject of official government documentation.
There are certain quirks of everyday British life that quietly disappear and later resurface in memory with a mix of amusement and mild disbelief.
One of these is the dog licence.
There was a time when, if you had a dog, you would need that small piece of paper to prove you were the owner. It was legally required to have one until 1987, and for decades, they cost the princely sum of 7 shillings (35 new pence).
'Princely' was the right word, though, as my first family dog went by the name of Prince. Despite his royal name, he was a mongrel dog, a happy one, but also an illegal one. I don’t remember us ever having a licence for him, but there again, I was quite young at the time. Such legal matters were not on my mind, and I don’t think it bothered Prince either, as he just went about his business of being a dog.
In the 1960s or 70s, you might occasionally hear someone say, “Have you got a licence for that dog?” It wasn’t said as a joke but as an entirely sensible question. Although I think the police probably had better and more important things to do with their time.
Like today, back then, dogs were everywhere. We British do like our pet dogs. They become part of the family and like to be treated as such. They don’t ask for much, just to be fed, taken for lots of walks, and shown a little love. In return, they give loyalty.
When I was very young, my mother would take Prince with us on the morning walk to school. Then, mid-afternoon when I was picked up, after a hard day of ignoring the teachers, there he would be, waiting at the school gate, ready for his next walk. Like all dogs, Prince liked his walks, whether it was to the school, local shop or pub. The pub was where he would snooze under the table, waiting for food scraps to come his way. After a long walk, he was hungry.
Wherever we took him, I don’t think anyone ever asked us if we had a dog licence. He was never barred from anywhere.
But for the law-abiding, owning a dog meant a trip to the post office to do your duty and buy the licence. It was a simple enough process — you filled in a form, handed over your 7 shillings, and left with your official piece of bureaucracy.
The dog would not have had to pass any test, no inspection, no check of the owner's ability to control a dog that had ideas above its station. You were not asked any questions about its background or where it came from.
It was, in truth, an exercise in mild government administration. One that had been around for a long time, and no one seemed to question. It was taken seriously enough to make the responsible dog owner feel properly legitimate.
A little like having a radio licence, and a TV licence, and a fishing licence, and…
The fact that you could legally own a budgie, hamster, or cat without any licence but needed documentation for a dog only added to the sense that dogs were somehow on the same level as driving a car. Or running a market stall.
It seemed to discriminate against them.
The idea behind the dog licence went back to the 19th century. It was a way to encourage accountability and ensure dogs could be traced to an owner, especially at a time when roaming dogs were a concern. But by the 1960s and 70s, the world had changed, and like many laws, it was a relic of an earlier era carried on by habit and tradition.
You didn’t have to display the licence anywhere. There was no little tag for the collar or sticker to put on the dog kennel or basket. The only proof you had was that slip of paper from the post office. If you bought one, it would then be tucked away inside a drawer, no doubt next to the TV and radio licence, birth certificates, and the instructions for an unused kitchen appliance.
Of course, the enforcement of the rule varied wildly. In theory, not having a dog licence could lead to a fine. In practice, if anyone was prosecuted, it might only happen if an unlicensed dog bit someone. Most people can’t remember anyone ever being asked to produce one.
Later, after Prince left us for doggy heaven, I got a new dog, a bundle of fun I named Lisa. But she was different, in that she was my dog. My Dad only let me have a new dog as long as I took care of her. I was the owner. I never got a dog licence for her, but there was a reason for that — money. Seven shillings might not have been much, but it was to me. My paper round didn’t pay me that much, so like Prince, Lisa was a fugitive.
Still, the police never came knocking on the door, and she remained free.
Much like the old radio licence or the TV detector vans that haunted the public imagination, the dog licence floated in that peculiarly British space between official seriousness and gentle farce. You were meant to have one — everyone said so — but the chances of getting in trouble without it were minimal.
Still, it’s difficult to say how many dog owners complied, but if they did, it was probably out of habit and partly because 7 shillings wasn’t much — for most people. It costs more today to buy a posh bag of dog treats.
For years, the dog licence sat quietly in the background, a small administrative backdrop to millions of childhood memories: it just existed, and life carried on. The dogs didn’t care.
By the mid-1980s, the licence system had become hopelessly outdated. It raised little money, cost too much to administer, and did little to control ownership.
In 1987, it was finally abolished.
Looking back, the dog licence feels like a small bureaucratic ritual that was part of British life until it wasn’t. It didn’t change the world, but it did give dog ownership in the UK a certain old-fashioned formality, a nod to the idea that having a pet was a responsibility, although many of us did that anyway.
The dog licence outlived its usefulness and became a symbolic relic.
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Image by Daniela Jakob from Pixabay
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