Brazilian Pit Bulls May Get Microchips

A Brazilian state is offering to implant electronic microchips in thousands of pit bulls this year, allowing dog owners to track their pets and enabling the government to punish those whose dogs are involved in attacks, an official said Wednesday.

An estimated 6,000 pit bulls in Belo Horizonte, some 270 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, will have the chips inserted near their spines allowing their movements to be tracked, said city health department official Maria do Carmo de Araujo Ramos, who is overseeing the program in the city, the capital of Minas Gerais state.

Ramos said the chips would help dog owners find lost pets while helping authorities enforce the law.

''Abandoned dogs are a huge problem in Minas Gerais,'' Ramos said by phone. ''If an abandoned pit bull attacks someone, even kills them, the person who abandoned the dog is responsible for the attack and needs to be punished.''

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Two state residents were killed by pit bulls this year, and 600 attacks were registered.

The state will pay for the procedure, which is not mandatory but strongly recommended, and the dogs and their owners' personal data will be entered into a state database. Mandatory registration took effect in August but the law has largely been ignored, Ramos said.

In Rio de Janeiro, laws require that pit bulls be kept on chains, be accompanied by someone over 18 and be walked only during the daytime.