American Bully XL attacks are likely to continue to rise now that the UK has let the “genie out of the bottle” with a boom in unlicensed breeding – and even a ban is unlikely to stop them, an expert has warned.
The dogs have been linked by campaigners to at least 14 human deaths since 2021, with the breed blamed for hundreds of attacks on dogs and other pets since emerging in the UK in recent years.
The latest attack – on an 11-year-old girl and two others in Birmingham – has prompted home secretary Suella Braverman to announce the government will look into a ban on the breed, which are larger versions of American pitbulls.
Suella Braverman is looking into a ban on the breed - but would it be effective?— (Getty/iStock)
But animal charities including the RSPCA and British Veterinarian Association have warned breed-specific bans are ineffective and could see thousands of innocent dogs put down – with the American Bully XL not even currently recognised as a breed in the UK.
Have you experienced a dog attack? If so email andy.gregory@independent.co.uk
Leading veterinarian Dave Martin, who acts as animal welfare adviser for around 1,000 vet practices under the umbrella of firm My Family Vets told The Independent that a “very high percentage” will have had experience of dealing with dogs attacked by American Bully-type breeds.
“Because these dogs are so much bigger, they’ve got very powerful jaws, they are naturally going to cause much more severe wounds,” said Dr Martin, who also acts as an expert witness in court cases involving dangerous dogs.
“If you get bitten by something that weighs 80kg, it’s going to cause you serious and significant injury. You’re not going to get away lightly”, he said, adding that Bully XLs “are certainly more aggressive [with other dogs] than some other breeds”.
Lee Parkin, a 49-year-old steel industry worker, is just one of many pet owners who can attest to this.
Lee Parkin’s dog Izzy was killed four days before Christmas last year— (Lee Parkin)
Despite having been brought up owning dogs, he told The Independent that he had been left “petrified” of these breeds and had been diagnosed with PTSD, after an American Bully mauled his family’s nine-year-old dog, which died in his arms shortly afterwards.
The dog – wearing only a bandana in place of a collar – approached Mr Parkin near his home in Scawthorpe, near Doncaster, on the morning of 21 December while he was walking his daughter’s dog Roxy, and his cocker spaniel-Jack Russell cross, named Izzy, upon whom it became “fixated”.
The Bully, said to have escaped from a house nearby, “clamped” Izzy between its front legs before it “grabbed her at the back of the neck and shook her to pieces like a rag doll”.
Mr Parkin said he jammed his fingers in the dog’s eye sockets, stamped on it, punched it and squeezed its testicles – but was unable to deter the canine until three other men finally intervened.
Suffering from asthma, Mr Parkin said he “collapsed” en route to the vet and once at the surgery, where medics were unable to save Izzy – who “suffered the worst possible death” four days before Christmas, devastating Mr Parkin and his family.
Mr Parkin said he struggles to think about his dog Izzy due to the harrowing way in which she was killed— (Lee Parkin)
The 49-year-old, who has suffered flashbacks and received counselling since the event, said he is now scared to walk his remaining dogs during the day in case he encounters other Bully XLs, which he believes are being bred near his home via artificial insemination.
The dog which killed Izzy also still lives nearby, with its owners given a police caution alongside conditions including attendance at compulsory dog awareness training, according to Mr Parkin.
Dr Martin warned that the breeds have become “fashionable”, with some owners acquiring them as “status dogs” to make themselves look “more aggressive”.
While unlicensed breeding generally boomed during the pandemic, the only part of that trade that didn’t collapse upon people’s return to the office was the “very buoyant” American Bully trade, he said.
So long as American Bullys remain in vogue, attacks will most likely continue to rise, he warned, adding: “It’s exploded as an issue – I think we’re behind the curve here. Effectively the genie is out of the bottle.”
But he warned that banning the dogs is not a plausible solution – with some efforts to clamp down on the canines even potentially increasing their popularity.
“We tried that with pit bulls and it didn’t work at all. We need to be looking at a multifaceted approach to reducing these attacks,” Dr Martin said.
He added: “If we ban these dogs tomorrow, what are we doing with the thousands of Bully XLs that are already wandering around our streets? Are we suggesting that we put them all to sleep? Which would just be something I can’t see the public ever agreeing to.
“Or are we going to have some sort of licensing system for those dogs? In which case we need to see the details to know whether that’s actually going to have any effect of whatsoever on reducing the level of injury or death that these dogs are causing.
A further difficulty is that there “is no simple test” that can identify whether a dog is a Bully XL, meaning experts could have to assess individual animals, with the potential for other experts to disagree with their conclusions.
“That’s the mess we got into with pit bulls,” he said. “And we ended up with hundreds of dogs locked up in police kennels because they might be a pit bull.”
Furthermore, while responsible American Bully owners would likely register their dogs, those keeping pets “for the wrong reasons” may not – “and I think those are more likely to be the dogs involved in attacks”, he said.
“It would be the good owners we were penalising, and we would just be creating an undercurrent of illegally owned dogs that might in actual fact end up increasing their status.”
