{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/animal-health-and-welfare-scotland-act-2006/section-18",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/animal-health-and-welfare-scotland-act-2006/section-18.json",
  "legislation": "asp/2006/11",
  "legislation_title": "Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/animal-health-and-welfare-scotland-act-2006",
  "path": "section/18",
  "kind": "section",
  "number": "18",
  "heading": "Responsibility for animals",
  "text": "(1) In this Part, references to being responsible for an animal mean being responsible for it on a permanent or temporary basis.\n(2) In this Part, references to being responsible for an animal include being in charge of it.\n(3) For the purposes of this Part, a person who owns an animal is always to be regarded as being a person who is responsible for it.\n(4) For the purposes of this Part, a person (“person A”) is to be regarded as responsible for any animal for which a person who is under 16 years of age, of whom person A has actual care and control, is responsible.\n(5) For the purposes of this Part, a person does not relinquish responsibility for an animal by reason only of abandoning it.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [
    {
      "type": "I",
      "label": "I1",
      "text": "S. 18 in force at 6.10.2006 by S.S.I. 2006/482, art. 2"
    }
  ],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2006/11/section/18",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T20:16:11.416486+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}