To have a dog, you will have to take a special course? This is not a joke, but a government project

Austrians who want to adopt a dog will have to take a special course next year, where they will learn, among other things, the basics of caring for a four-legged friend. This idea has already been successfully tested in Vienna, where over 20,000 people have taken part in the training so far.

From January 2026, any resident of Austria who wants to register a dog and has not had a pet in the previous two years will have to undergo mandatory training. During the four-hour course, future owners will learn, among other things, how to choose a dog that meets their needs and how to care for it. The instructors will also reveal the secrets of basic dog training and familiarize participants with the regulations regarding pets.

In Vienna, such courses have been conducted on a pilot basis since 2019. As the Viennese councillor for animal welfare, Juergen Czernohorszky , says in an interview with broadcaster ORF, paradoxically, such training very often allows people to understand that they are not ready to own a pet.

- The courses prevent animal suffering by providing people with reliable and independent information they need to decide whether or not to own a dog, he explains.

Eva Persy, an animal rights advocate from Vienna , shares this view and adds that the key to the success of the training is that it is not "tedious and boring", but is "a real opportunity to gain valuable knowledge about modern dog ownership, directly from expert practitioners".