Licensing of Activities Involving Animals

Anyone who operates a premises providing accommodation (including day care and home boarding) for dogs and/or cats needs to apply for a licence. No person may operate an animal boarding establishment without first obtaining a licence from their local authority.

Application Forms:

• Animal boarding inc day care
  
• Home boarding application

Guidance:

• Dog boarding guidance
• Home boarding guidance
• Cat boarding guidance

Anyone selling animals as pets, or with the expectation that they will be resold as pets, in the course of a business, requires a licence.

The activity of selling animals as pets does not include selling or keeping animals in the course of any of the licensable activities of operating an animal welfare establishment (such as an animal sanctuary or rehoming centre), engaging in other animal rehoming activities or dog, cat or rabbit breeding (a breeding licence allows for the direct supply of animals as pets).

However, if a licence holder is licenced to carry on one of those other licensable activities and carries on the activity of selling animals as pets in the course of a business outside the licenced activity, a separate licence will be required for the activity of selling animals as pets.

Application Form:

• Selling animals as pets licence application form

Guidance:

• Guidance for pet sellers

Any person breeding 3 or more litters of kittens or puppies or 6 or more litters of kits in any 12 month period must be licensed.

The requirement to be licensed does not apply however to the breeding of dogs where the offspring are intended to be trained and used as assistance dogs.

The requirement to be licensed as a rabbit breeder does not apply where a person is breeding rabbits for the purposes of personal consumption or in the course of commercial meat production.

Application form:

• Animal Breeding Licence Application Form

Guidance:

• Guidance for dog breeders 
  
• Guidance for cat breeders 
  
• Guidance for rabbit breeders

An AWE is defined as places where relevant animals have been abandoned or otherwise separated from their keeper (including relinquishment or a seizure), or sick, injured or captured relevant animals that were previously living in a wild state.

Any persons or organisations operating animal welfare establishments (AWE) (such as animal sanctuaries or animal rehoming centres) where 8 animals (excluding fish) or 5 dogs or 5 equines are kept at the same time by the operator of the AWE must be licensed. The 8-animal threshold excludes any animal under 4 months old if it was born within the AWE or arrived at the AWE with its mother.

Persons do not meet the criteria for licensing as an AWE if the animals are:

• Kept as pets.
• Kept at premises used for the care or treatment of animals by a person who is a veterinary surgeon.
• Kept by or are in the care of a local authority.
• Kept as part of farming or for use in the course of a business.
• Kept temporarily by persons licensed under the Animal Boarding Establishments Act 1963.
• Kept solely for military, police or sporting purposes.
• Kept for exhibition for the purposes of education or entertainment.
• Dogs kept to be trained as assistance dogs.

Application Form:

• Animal welfare establishment application form

Guidance:

• Guidance for animal welfare establishments

Any person or organisation that supplies animals as pets to persons in Scotland that have been sourced for that purpose from either within or outwith Scotland must, subject to a few exceptions, be licensed.

An example would be a person or organisation that sources street or rescue dogs from Eastern Europe for the purposes of rehoming them with persons in Scotland. Any such person or organisation engaging in animal rehoming activities and supplying 5 or more animals as pets in any 12-month period must be licensed, unless the animal being supplied is a fish or was bred by the person supplying the animal.

Guidance:

• Guidance for animal rehoming activities

Application Form:

Contact: regulatoryservices@stirling.gov.uk

Licences issued under The Animal Welfare (licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 are required to be kept in a public register. The register can be viewed below and contains details of all animal licences issued by Stirling Council.

For further information or advice, please contact regulatoryservices@stirling.gov.uk