CONFUSE THE MARKET.COM

So, in the wake of a few recent serious incidents, HM Gov. are going to make it compulsory for all dog owners to have insurance. I don`t have a problem with that, especially as Barney is already insured against all kinds of things, including third party risk. He also has a chip under the skin of his neck which gives all the his details and, when he`s out and about, he always wears his collar with his name tag showing our name and phone number, so all in all Barney`s pretty well covered.

As a dog owner myself, I have genuine sympathy with those families whose members have quite literally been attacked by untrained dogs and the full force of the law should be brought to bear against their owners - if they can ever be traced. But, like the proverbial sledge hammer to crack a nut, the Government`s proposal, to require all dogs to be properly insured, will hit everyone. Even those, like us, who needed no telling to `do the right thing,` not just by our fellow citizens but also by Barney himself, pictured above in one of his more aggressive moments.

What might make more sense is a couple of measures that may not be included in the Government`s proposals, such as reintroducing the dog licence which was abolished years ago, I think because at 37p a year, it cost more to administer than the amount of cash it brought in. But the point of it was not so much to make money or to register the dog, but to register the owners. But perhaps a more useful idea would be to make dog training compulsory, administered through the Kennel Club, who already have an excellent `Good Citizen` award scheme which trains dogs to be well behaved and, crucially, well controlled. Barney`s already got the Bronze and Silver awards and he`s well into the Gold training. He`s finding it a bit demanding, which is no bad thing, for anything worth doing should not be easy.

In fact, we`re off this evening to extend Barney`s `education,` along with our own. I quite expect to see a posse of insurance salesmen waiting at the door of the village hall where the Golden Retrievers of mid-Kent assemble each Wednesday. I`m afraid the salesmen might be too late and so will have had a wasted journey. We`ve already compared the confused market.com, thank you very much.