One Bendigo animal shelter is hoping backyard breeding will become harder when new legislation comes into force in July.
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A pet exchange register is likely to make it easier to control backyard breeding the president of Bendigo Animal Welfare and Community Services said.
The register will mean that anyone who is advertising to either sell or give away a dog or a cat must be enrolled from July 1.
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The laws will also bind those using online forums such as Facebook Buy, Swap, Sell pages.
BAWCS President Debbie Edwards said she hoped people thought about the consequences of letting their pet have a litter because of the change.
The shelter saw a drop in cats and dogs advertised for sale when the laws were changed to make it compulsory to provide a microchip number when selling a pet, Ms Edwards said.
She attributed this to people's realisation that they had to pay money before they could sell a pet.
Ms Edwards said the register would help in the same way.
"If people realise there's a lot more involved now to get onto the pet exchange register, they may not want to do that, and it may help with stopping backyard breeding, which is also a big problem," she said.
"The more complicated you make things for people, the less likely they are to want to do things if it's not to the benefit of the animals."
Ms Edwards said she hoped the exchange register would help to stop backyard breeding of animals.
"We were hoping that people would be thinking about what it entails to let their pets have a litter, before going ahead and just doing it without thinking much about it," Ms Edwards said.
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