Goverment under pressure to prohibit breed blamed for series of fatal attacks
The government is facing a backlash after refusing to ban a breed of dog accused of killing at least nine people including three children since 2021.
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Ministers have “quietly announced” that they do not intend to outlaw American Bully XLs, which have been blamed for a “spate of horror dog attacks”, said The Mirror. MPs “from all sides” had demanded “urgent action”.
But responding to a question in the House of Lords last week, Environment Minister Richard Benyon there were “no plans” to ban the breed.
Keir Starmer has pledged to review the legislation if Labour wins the next election.
‘Aggressive, asserting, fighting dogs’
Labour MP Wayne David told The Mirror that the government’s failure to “tackle the epidemic of dog attacks” was “shocking”. The Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991 is “failing”, said David, who represents Caerphilly in South Wales, where 10-year-old Jack Lis was mauled to death by a Bully XL in 2021.
The breed is a version of the American bulldog that originated in the US in the 1980s. The XL is not recognised by any of the main dog associations in the UK, so there are no figures on ownership. But the breed’s “frequent appearance in the news, often under tragic circumstances, suggests they are more prevalent than ever”, said The Guardian.
Policing Minister Chris Philp told LBC last month that despite making up only a “tiny fraction” of dogs in the country, the XL accounted for “somewhere between a quarter and a half” of all dogs seized by the police.
XLs were “specifically bred to be aggressive, assertive, fighting dogs”, said the i news site’s science writer Stuart Ritchie, and can weigh more than 60kg.
These dogs are a “huge, highly muscled variant of the pit bull terrier”, one of four banned breeds in the UK. But because the XL is relatively new, it “falls into a loophole in the law”, Ritchie added.
Critics calling for this loophole to be addressed point to the recent steep increase in fatal attacks by dogs. Between 2001 and 2021, the average number of dog-related deaths in England and Wales was 3.3 per year.
But the annual total of fatalities soared to 10 in 2022, and a further five have been recorded so far this year. The XL has been “linked to at least nine of these recent deaths – including all of the deaths in 2023”, wrote Ritchie.
The breed is also believed to be a factor behind a 50% increase in hospital admissions for dog bites in England and Wales over the past decade.
Dog experts who oppose bans “seem to be in denial”, wrote Ed West for The Spectator, but the “underlying story behind this escalation of violence is that much of it is the work” of the XL. Banning them “would almost certainly save lives”.
‘Wholly unsuitable humans’
The XL has “become the focus of a new wave of panic and hysteria”, said Joel Day in the Daily Express. But some argue that this is a “story of misunderstanding, mistreatment and malpractice in the world of dog ownership and breeding”.
XLs are repeatedly being abandoned by owners unable to cope with them, Bullie Rescue UK charity, which specialises in rehoming bull breeds.
Celebrity owners are increasing the breed’s popularity, creating demand from “wholly unsuitable humans”, said Jane Williams, a committee member of the Association of Pet Behavioural Counsellors. “They don’t give them care and attention, which can result in aggressive behaviour.”
These dogs are being “let down by criminality and neglect”, she told the Express, and banning them would not prevent dog-related injuries and fatalities.
“We’ll just be waiting until the next ‘dangerous’ breed comes around,” Williams added.
Banning XLs or any other breed “would offer false assurances”, tweeted the RSPCA’s head of companion animals, Sam Gaines. Instead, “robustly enforced breed-neutral laws with preventative measures” is key to protecting the public, Gaines argued.
