For licensed dog breeders, record keeping, policies and logging activity are more than just admin tasks, they’re a requirement to ensure compliance with licensing standards and to uphold animal welfare. While checklists have traditionally been used to manage these tasks, they often fall short of meeting the requirements, putting licences and breeder reputations at risk.
The Limitations of Checklists
Checklists, offer a simple approach to admin tasks, providing licensed breeders with various tick boxes to perform. However, this simplicity can ignore important parts of the legislation:
- Not Detailed Enough – A simple tick on a list doesn’t capture vital information like detailed health check records, behavioural diary notes, or even important general working environment requirements.
- Inadequate Documentation – Enforcement officers expect detailed logs, which include dates, times, key tasks, and who was responsible for each completed task. Checklists and tick boxes don’t provide the structure or the opportunity to record the required level of compliance.
- Compliance Risks – Relying on basic checklists can lose the purpose of the task and the value of it, leading to oversights, incomplete records, and possible breaches of breeding licence requirements, all of which can have damaging consequences.
The Growing Need for a Modern Approach
The 2024 Post Implementation Review (PIR) of the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) Regulations 2018 has highlighted an important shift: local authorities and their enforcement officers are now requesting a more structured and streamlined approach to record keeping requirements.
Many licensed breeders have relied on paper checklists, spreadsheets, and tick box applications to keep on top and track their records. Whilst those methods have worked to an extent in the past, they don’t always include the level of detail now being expected by local enforcement officers. As breeding licence regulations evolve, it’s becoming evident that a more efficient, comprehensive way of recording the required admin tasks will be needed, to help breeders remain compliant and satisfy local enforcement officers.
With inspections becoming more thorough, licensed breeders will now need to look at alternative ways to simplify their record keeping and admin tasks, to keep up with legislations changes whilst also ensuring they remain compliant, and their records retrievable when requested.
A Smarter, More Practical Approach
To support licensed breeders with record keeping and admins tasks, we continue to offer free paperwork, which include checklists, policies and assessments which breeders can still use to help achieve breeding licence requirements. However, as the regulations move towards a more structured and streamlined approach, it’s becoming clear that a alternative and more comprehensive process will be needed moving forward.
That is why we have been working hard, listening to our licensed breeders and developing ‘The Digital PawPrint’, not as a quick fix, but as a long term structured and streamlined system, that we continue to evolve. It’s being designed to satisfy current breeding licence requirements whilst also adapting as regulations change, ensuring licensed breeders remain compliant and admin tasks are easier to manage without adding unnecessary stress.
Most importantly, it is the licensed breeders themselves who are shaping its future. Every feature added and every tweak made, is influenced by real challenges and real feedback from breeders, ensuring it remains a practical and compliant system, as expectations from local enforcement officers continue to grow.
Final Thoughts
Although checklists might have been historically useful for keeping track of daily admin tasks and to aid record keeping completion, unfortunately they’re simply not enough when it comes to meeting breeding licence requirements. With regulations becoming stricter, licensed breeders will require a better system to ensure they remain compliant and keep their breeding licence. ‘The Digital PawPrint’ continues to bridge that gap, offering a structured and streamlined way for licensed breeders to stay organised, meet breeding licence regulations, and enabling breeders to provide the highest level of animal welfare.
For anyone reading this blog, we’re offering one month of free access to The Digital PawPrint. Email hello[@]licensedbreeder.co.uk or fill out our enquiry form here to get started!
