
A Dog Who Took the Witness Stand - meanie
https://narratively.com/the-dog-who-took-the-witness-stand/
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amingilani
Interestingly enough, we now have better ways of proving ownership that
weren't possible back then: Get your dog microchipped and tattooed if you
haven't already. They're far better ways of proving ownership than feelings.

Also, if I were there, I'd have snuck a treat into the court room. It's far
more foolproof if I'd been able to condition the dog to expect treats by
coming to me in a few 20 minute vists.

Also, does anyone have suggestions for international pet databases? My country
doesn't have a national database.

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bloak
I don't see how a microchip (that a thief would have removed/replaced) helps
prove ownership, and tattooing has been available for a long time.

A friend of a friend lost their cat once: it suddenly disappeared. Several
years later they found it dead in a public place, but apparently well fed. It
appears that someone else had adopted it, but they never even found out who,
let alone how or why. I don't know how they identified the animal. Some people
can identify animals from their appearance as easily as most people identify
humans; some people cannot even identify humans very reliably.

Put lots of pictures of you and your pet on social media, perhaps, and summon
an animal super-recogniser as an expert witness?

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LeifCarrotson
> I don't see how a microchip (that a thief would have removed/replaced) helps
> prove ownership...

A microchip (aka RFID tag) contains a unique serial number. An entry
corresponding to this serial number is added to national databases that are
easily searched by vets, shelters, and animal control.

It's nontrivial to remove a microchip (requires a vet to perform an X-ray and
surgery). You're talking about removing a grain of rice that's buried
somewhere within the dog's shoulders.

On the other hand, it's easy to transfer registration data (modifying the
database entry) if you have the approval of the original owner.

At any vet worth their board certification, they would scan the chip and
contact the named owner before performing this surgery.

Microchips are well known to be effective ownership proving tools, and their
prevalence even without a matching tattoo is usually an effective theft
deterrent. If you think you can demonstrate otherwise (notwithstanding
anecdotes concerning lost/stolen unchipped pets), I'd love to hear it!

~~~
bloak
An RFID tag is an excellent way of labelling a furry animal, no doubt about
it, and a national database administered by regulated and trustworthy
professionals is an excellent way of making it possible to prove ownership, no
doubt about that, either. However, as I see it, it's the database plus
regulated professionals that's the essential ingredient here, not the
particular way that labelling is implemented.

Though I introduced the thought myself, perhaps removing microchips is not all
that relevant. If there was no reliable database and vets were all corrupt
then you could have an animal with six RFID tags attached to it, and six
people each claiming to be the owner of each of those tags, and how would that
help anyone prove ownership?

Nevertheless, if one did want to remove an RFID tag, I'd hope there would be a
better way of locating the thing than X-rays. It does, after all, contain a
transponder and I seem to recall that when RFID tags were first proposed one
of their advantages was supposed to be that you could use them to precisely
locate things. If someone had attached an RFID tag to my property and I was
worried that they wanted to do something nefarious, how would you recommend
that I locate and remove/destroy that tag?

~~~
LeifCarrotson
> _Nevertheless, if one did want to remove an RFID tag, I 'd hope there would
> be a better way of locating the thing than X-rays.

Ultrasound might be useful, too, especially for determining the depth of the
tag, but most vets would reach for the radiograph. The ultrasound head will be
right over top of the tag, which would make it difficult to mark the location
and see what you're doing during surgery.

> _It does, after all, contain a transponder and I seem to recall that when
> RFID tags were first proposed one of their advantages was supposed to be
> that you could use them to precisely locate things.*

RFID provides location tracking by being an easily scanned unique identifier,
not by transmitting location data. You'd need to have a reader within a few
inches of the tag to locate it, at which point your nefarious actor is fully
in posession of the pet (just as they were when they implanted the tag). It
could locate your animal as having last gone through a pet door in one
direction or the other with a reader on each side of the gate, it can't put a
dot on a map for a wardriving Cruella DeVille. Think permanent, easy-to-read
barcode sticker, not GPS transmitter.

> _If someone had attached an RFID tag to my property and I was worried that
> they wanted to do something nefarious, how would you recommend that I locate
> and remove /destroy that tag?_

Bring your animal to your vet. They'll recognize you and your pet's history
(you are up to date on your vaccinations and animal registration, correct?)
and will be able to scan and see your microchip, as well as the new data. Then
you can file a police report.

~~~
bloak
Thanks for that information!

What if I'm worried that someone has attached an RFID tag to my car, my
bicycle, or an item of clothing?

(The tags used in animals might only be readable at a range of a few inches,
but: "Gen2 tags can have a read range of over 16 meters or 52 feet when using
the full 4 Watt EIRP legally allowed on the readers by FCC and other global
regulators"; "a model using a beam-steerable phased-array antenna can
interrogate passive tags at a distance of 600 feet or more")

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sorahn
I've seen a similar story(video) with Judge Judy pop up on reddit a few times.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqZKFzFZEqc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqZKFzFZEqc)

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virusduck
Ain't no rules says a dog can't play witness.

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gumby
I thought this might be about the opposite: in some cultures animals could be
tried and convicted of crimes:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_trial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_trial)

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gberger
Then the dog would be the defendant, not a witness.

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gumby
Defendants take the stand all the time.

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saghm
Would they be considered witnesses though? I'm honestly not sure whether the
legal classification overlaps or not. I suppose that one doesn't necessarily
have to be a witness to "take the witness stand" even if not, though.

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ggm
Dogs can look guilty. And lie. So we probably can fMRI a dog to get a sense of
if it can pass the McNaughton test ("would you have done it, if a policeman
was watching")

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tabtab
Sounds like a cheesy Brady Bunch plot, but is a great story regardless. As a
former dog owner, it's not hard to relate to the owner here.

