XL Bully Around Children

[Popcornlassie28]

Hi,

My SIL has decided to buy a XL bully dog (yes I know they are in the process of being banned by the government).

I was bitten by a bully type dog as a child when I was round a friend’s house having a play date so I’m naturally on edge about this.

I have two small children (and she has an older school age child) and I’ve expressed I’m not comfortable with the children visiting the house with the dog there but she is welcome to visit us here.

They think I’m being OTT and said that the dog is fine and not all are aggressive. She is refusing to muzzle or put the dog away as she said it’s a pet that needs to be socialised with people and putting the dog away will add to the issue.

Seeing all the news about these dogs at the moment makes me think I’m being responsible as one bite can kill and be devastating.

I know it’s a nature verses nurture debate and people think it’s how they are raised and not their breed but I don’t know enough about this breed to comment.

Am I being unreasonable to not allow the children over?

@HerMammy that is a little pedantic. Of course they don’t anatomically lock their jaws the same way a horse can lock their knees to stay standing while asleep or a snake can unhinge their jaws, but they’ve evolved/been bred to have a strong reflex of hanging on to their prey and using all the strength and pressure of those massive jaws to hang on to something even if it’s a huge bull. Given that a bull terrier, 10% of the weight of a bull, has a realistic chance of bringing that bull down, imagine what it could do to a child half its weight that antagonised it. Even a gentle dog like a Labrador can hurt a child by accident through exuberance (eg knocking over or dragging around if they’re on the lead) and a good natured but large dog can cause serious damage in the same way without intending to.

A relative works with various farmers and landowners. He came home once and said X has an X-L bully who they’re going to breed from, we’re first in line for a puppy! A while ago before ban.

His partner said oh no we’re not, and that was that.

A couple of weeks later the XL Bully was shot on the farm because out of the blue it attacked another of the landowners dogs, and the (frankly stupid) wife of the estate owner tried to separate them. She lost three fingers and serious arm injuries, and someone had to get the gamekeeper to shoot the dog to get it to stop.

This is an estate where dogs are kept and trained for shooting and hunting. They are very experienced owners, and know how to train a dog. Didn’t stop tragedy happening.

Nice to see some commonsense on Bully threads for a change.

Wouldn't be taking my child anywhere near that dog for as long as it lives.

If we're in a park and one appears, my son goes on one of our shoulders immediately and we exit. Will take the long way around to avoid going past one.

Anyone who puts their child in harm's way by taking them around these dogs is being neglectful as a parent, reckless. It's not like anyone can claim ignorance now of what they're capable of.

This is a must-read. In the UK the majority of stud dogs link back to a single stud called Kimbo who was hugely inbred and was massively powerful. His pups have a tendency to be placid and then as young adults flip and attack out of the blue. The US breeders are way ahead on trying to delete his bloodline but in the UK with a much smaller breeding pool almost every stud in linked to this one dog. I wouldn't be surprised if the story above of a 6 year old being attacked by a previously placid dog is a Kimbo bloodline dog.

Basically, in the UK these dogs are a liability, and yes that is compounded by poor training, but everyone saying "it's not the dog, it's the owner" - you are wrong. It's the breeders.

https://bullywatch.link/2023/08/01/finding-kimbo/

Re: the Kimbo gene pool; I do think breeding plays a part, and we need more regulation around dog breeding in general, not just with "dangerous" breeds but all dogs. We should ensure all breeds are being bred for good health and temperament, as opposed to looks. Like pedigrees are bred with conformity to breed standards as the most important factor, these dogs are bred for size. We need to change that and have more emphasis on temperament and less on the way a dog looks.

However, when you look at all of the attacks there has been an element of owner negligence/error or just straight-out neglect in all of the publicised attacks.

Imo, you can afford to be more negligent (not that we should be negligent with any dog) with a well-bred dog but owner competence plays the biggest part in determining if a dog will go on to attack.

Kimbo is probably genetically linked to hundreds of puppies if not thousands. The vast majority of them will go on to lead peaceful lives.

Should we keep allowing him and his offspring to breed? No.

Are all of his puppies going to suddenly turn without reason? No.

As long as the SIL in question does her homework and properly trains, socialises, exercises, and supervises this dog it is unlikely to go on to seriously harm anyone. Of course, OP is free to keep her children away if she is worried. Only she knows SIL and her ability to properly manage and care for a dog like this.

Your sister is an absolute fuck!ng idiot and you are not even a bit unreasonable.

I'd not leave a child unsupervised with any breed of dog tbh unless they live together and I know they can be trusted. So visiting any dog I'd be hyperaware of my child and where they are.

That said, I'd judge the dog on personality, not breed. Two of my friends have XL bully's and both of them are soft as muck.

One sleeps under the baby's cot and runs to wake friend just before baby wakes for a feed. Baby doesn't even get to the crying part as dog has prewarned that she's about to wake up. He dotes on that child like an extra parent.

The other flops onto his back for belly scratches the minute he meets someone. You get sniffed, a few licks on the arm then presented with a belly to fuss and occasionally a stuffed toy. They're not dangerous dogs, either of them.

Good luck with all that.

Yeah, they're usually soft, until they snap.

In many, many cases where children and adults have been killed by these dogs, the children/adults were the dogs owners. Family. Lived together, since puppyhood. That doesn't make you immune to an attack.

The 'it's the owner not the dog' thing is such a weird response anyway. So what if it is? Even if it is, that means a bad owner has made a dog dangerous. So that doesn't really change the fact that these dogs should be banned, as there will always be bad owners, and nobody's life should be put at risk because they went to the park and a dog mauled them because they were 'raised that way' (even though in many cases they've been raised since puppyhood very well and still follow their base instincts to maul).

A bad owner of a Daschund, not much risk down the line there. Bad owner of an XL bully? Gonna lose your life and limbs.

It's nonsense anyway. These dogs aren't to blame, they're doing what their ancestors were bred to do for many, many, generations. To fight. To kill. It's their basic nature. Owning a bully is like owning a tiger you've raised since birth then being surprised when it mauls you one day.

So, you think it is okay for a dog to be mistreated and neglected as long as it is a small dog @hjytrjulykuyh?

Ignoring the ethical issue with this, it's a very short-sighted way of looking it. Breed bans do not work. They have never worked. Fatalities caused by Pitbulls are just as high in the UK as they have ever been and the overall number of fatalities caused by dogs is rising steadily year on year.

We can ban the XL Bully cross, and we can ban the next breed or cross the "bad owners" turn their attention to, and the one after that, and the one after that. Until we start turning our attention to the other end of the lead the number of people being killed by dogs will continue to rise.

We need a bigger focus on education so that the "bad owners" stop being "bad owners". No one wants their dog to maul their family or neighbour to death. It's a lack of understanding. Coupled with tighter regulations on breeding education could finally start to reduce the number of fatalities caused by dogs. Atm, all we are doing is repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different result.

I can’t believe how anyone could be that stupid! Thankfully I don’t know anyone irl with this type of dog, nor have I ever seen one in my area.

OK sis, you sign a contract that if your dog hurts my child you pay me 50,000.
If she isn't willing to, then she knows there's a chance.

I think I’ve said this upthread but “it’s the owner not the dog” is similar to “it’s the person, not the gun”. It’s BECAUSE people aren’t good, responsible and sensible all the time that people get killed even by guns going off by accident (forget the deliberate shootings), so there are laws in place in this country to restrict them to the people and uses that are unlikely to result in harm to others. Same goes with dogs. I’ve never had a dog but I have a lot of experience with horses, who could very easily crush you to death, kick you in the head, bite you, cause a nasty fall etc even without meaning to. We had a lovely gentle horse who signalled affection by pushing with his head and nibbling our shoulders. That would be much more dangerous for a toddler, which is why we wouldn’t let children near him. That’s why there are laws and regulations to ensure safety precautions around horses. I also agree about the comparison with “wild” animals like big cats. Their equivalent of having an off day and making a mean remark could be tearing your arm off.

The comparison to gun control only works if we are talking about a ban on all dogs. If we are comparing dogs to guns banning the XL Bully is like banning fully automatic rifles but still allowing unfettered access to semi-automatics.

The people who like owning fully automatics will buy a semi instead.

The people who like XL Bullies will buy or breed Mastiffs or Cane Corsos instead.

Unless we are going to ban all dog ownership for the general public we can only resolve the problem if we start looking at the people and teaching the people how to be responsible.

@frequency I think we’re in violent agreement or at least disagreeing solely on semantics. I never said people shouldn’t be taught and guided on training and treatment of dogs (and I don’t know how this would work, but breeding of dogs with violent tendencies or congenital health problems like pugs should at least be heavily regulated). Until we have the time, infrastructure and public will to do that, we should restrict the most dangerous/hazardous types of dogs. To go back to the shooting analogy, I used to shoot with an air pistol competitively and was scrupulously taught how to be safe with it. I could easily have decided one day I wanted to go and shoot everyone who had ever hurt me or something (obviously that has never occurred to me, but it does in America roughly twice a week). Would I have done more damage with my little air pistol which I had to reload every shot, or with an AR-15? Similarly, is a moody little chihuahua or terrier who decides he doesn’t like you more or less scary than a dog which weighs more than you, can drag you around and bite an actual chunk out of you, even if they think they’re just playing? These dogs are more dangerous even if you don’t take the aggression into account.

BalloonHearts I used to know someone with a dog like that. As docile as anything, really soft, protective of the children. Slept on the nursery floor etc. Until the day it took half the younger child's face off. Rottweiler/Bully mongrel type of dog.

I don't buy the "it's not the dog it's the owner" argument.

Dogs have a job that they were bred to do and it is instinctive to them. For example, my spaniel was bred to retrieve and is obsessed with retrieving balls and sticks and will have had this instinct whether she was raised by me or by a heard of elephants. Of course, I as the owner can ensure she is trained properly to control this but it is an innate instinct to her and her breed.

In the case of the xl bully, they were bred for aggression and to kill. A "good" owner might be able to keep darling Daisy under control for a time but as far as I am concerned, they are a loaded shotgun that could go off at any moment and that is not would not be a risk that I would even begin to contemplate.

The owners of these dogs already think they know everything though, so they won’t be interested in further education. As I’ve said before, they commonly don’t even microchip them even though it’s the law, so good luck expecting them to come to training classes.
Also, a lot of the attacks happen when the dog is being looked after by family/friends, so you’d need everyone to be trained.

I have no idea why anyone would want to buy a dog of this type when there are literally dozens and dozens of magnificent breeds to choose from. It’s asking for unnecessary trouble.

I wouldn’t be taking my kids round either.

One sleeps under the baby's cot

Fuck me some people really do deserve everything they get. Thick as mince.

Your friends are terrible parents. Absolutely despicable.

I'm sure they'll take your hysterical catastrophising under advisement. 🤣

This is terrifying!

One of the biggest problem with xl bully's is that they can be docile and sweet until they suddenly flip out of nowhere and attack.

Leaving a child unattended with any breed of dog, while you sleep, is dangerous and negligent parenting.

I’d assume that anyone who is leaving their child sleep unattended with a type of dog that is being banned due to the deaths and injuries that have occurred is trying to make a point, and are willing to risk their child’s life to do so.

I can’t believe you think it’s funny.