American XL bully dogs are to be banned by the end of the year following a spate of horrific attacks, Rishi Sunak has announced.
The prime minister said the dogs, which campaigners have linked to at least 14 human deaths since 2021, are a danger to children and communities, in a video posted to social media.
He said he shared “the nation’s horror” over videos of recent dog attacks and had ordered urgent work to define “and ban this breed so we can end these violent attacks and keep people safe.”
American XL bully dogs will be banned by the end of the year— ( Empyrean Bullies/YouTube)
It comes after it was confirmed that a man had died in Staffordshire after being attacked by two suspected American bullies.
Mr Sunak said it was now clear that the problem was not “about a handful of badly trained dogs”. “It is a pattern of behaviour and it cannot go on,” he said.
“While owners already have a responsibility to keep their dogs under control, I want to reassure people that we are urgently working on ways to stop these attacks and protect the public.”
But he admitted that a ban would take time - as there is currently no definition of the breed, which are larger versions of American pit bulls. Police and other experts have been tasked with solving that problem, to allow ministers to ban the animals under the Dangerous Dogs Act by the end of the year.
A series of attacks have recently hit the headlines, with an 11-year-old girl left with serious injuries in Birmingham last week, and two other men also injured.
After footage of the dog clamping its jaw around her arm went viral, schoolgirl Ana Paun said that “all of the dogs... all of them should be banned”.
At the weekend Home Secretary Suella Braverman also backed calls to ban the breed and announced she would be commissioning “urgent advice” on the matter.
Rishi Sunak has vowed to ban the breed by the end of the year— (Getty/iStock)
Yesterday, a man was mauled to death by two suspected XL bullies in Main Street, Stonnall, with police forced to lockdown a nearby primary school.
He was found with “multiple life-threatening injuries” and died in hospital later. Staffordshire Police have since confirmed that both dogs have died, one while being restrained after the incident and another by lethal injection.
The UK does not currently recognise the American bully XL as a specific breed, although they are recognised in the US.
According to the campaign group Bully Watch, the dogs first started to appear in the UK in around 2014. The breed saw a rapid increase in popularity during the pandemic.
In the past five years, there has been a 34 per cent increase in dog attacks, from 16,394 in 2018 to 21,918 last year.
A police officer outside a property in Staffordshire, after a man was bitten by two dogs (Matthew Cooper/PA)— (PA Wire)
Last year, there were 10 fatal attacks, six of which involved an American XL bully.
However, experts and animal charities including the RSPCA and British Veterinarian Association have warned that breed-specific bans are ineffective and could see thousands of innocent dogs put down.
Leading veterinarian Dave Martin told The Independent: “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.”
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.”
