XL Bully attack | 8 year old boy seriously injured

[ThisOldThang]

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/schoolboy-8-seriously-injured-after-28610020

"A schoolboy is in a serious condition in hospital after being mauled by what is believed to be an XL bully.

Merseyside Police were called to Wadham Road in Bootle just after 5.20pm on Saturday following reports a dog had bitten an eight-year-old boy to the head in the communal area of flats nearby.

The boy was rushed to hospital with serious head injuries and required emergency surgery. He remains in hospital in a serious but stable condition."

IMHO the ban doesn't go anywhere near far enough and all XL Bullys need to be put to sleep.

AIBU?

These dogs are awful. Not their fault. There’s a woman locally to me who walks one and it pulls and is muzzled. Hope the muzzle is secure.

Why are we so stupid in the UK? Google banned dog breeds for other countries, for example France and Germany. Here’s what the French regulations say:

Category 1: Banned breeds in France
France has two classifications for dangerous dogs. Category 1 dogs are defined as attack dogs without pedigree papers. These dogs are considered dangerous, and the import of these breeds are prohibited in France. They are not allowed to be transported in the cabin or as cargo in an aeroplane to France.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry in France, Category 1 attack dogs are defined by their morphology and physical affinity to the following breeds:

• Staffordshire Terrier
• American Staffordshire Terrier (Pitbull Terrier)
• Japanese Tosa Inu
• Boerbull Mastiff

Buying and selling of these breeds are banned, and it is compulsory to desex these dog breeds in France. They must always be on a lead and muzzled in public, and they do not have access to public transport, public places and common areas in apartments.

UK: ’Fur babies’.
Utter idiocy.

Agreed, OP - they all need to be PTS. Any ‘softer’ rules will simply be ignored by too many of the people who keep these dogs - hardly the most responsible, law-abiding citizens in the first place.

I do wish all dogs were on a leash and muzzled in public by law.

I regularly go running and it's not the first time a bad tempered dog has gone for my ankles - the last time, it was a Spaniel.

They need to approach this like they did with designer drugs (whereby people were just making small changes to the chemical structure and re-releasing as a 'legal' drug).

It’s my view that we shouldn’t have areas that are so scary/deprived/ threatening that people feel the need to invest in aggressive, killer dogs.

The issue runs far deeper than dogs.

By that token, you must also prefer mice, birch trees, vegetable peelers etc to people? 😄

He's the best boy Bingo

Until he isn’t.

All dogs are weapons and should be owned responsibly.....what a sad loss.

I don’t think the new regulations go nearly far enough. All XLs should be humanely pts, with prosecutions, massive fines or prison for anyone failing to comply. I don’t want to let my tween child out alone for fear they could run into one. In countries where polar bears live, people go out with weapons for protection. Yet we have something here that has the power to kill and it just seems to be accepted, including by not legislating against having them around children in the home.

Has anyone considered in light of recent events that a petition should be started to urge the government to go further? Here is the link in case anyone wants to use the power of mumsnet to get it going:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/check

I would but I’m not on all the main social medias so it probably wouldn’t get off the ground. But looking at how many comments on the XL threads, plus how many of us have all our friends and family who feel the same, this could easily pass the threshold for debating in parliament.

Of the 10 XL bullies I've seen in the last couple weeks only two have been muzzled. London is full of them.

i hope this child is ok. This is such a trick issue to fix - even if putting all the big dogs down was remotely ethical or realistic as a plan in terms of solving the problem (it isn’t), we would still not have the resources to enforce it, so it would pretty much be voluntary action by law abiding, conscientious owners and we would end up with a situation where all the dogs whose owners are not prepared to do this would be kept in exactly the conditions that make them more dangerous - defensive, suspicious owners, locked in all day, unsocialised etc.. most attacks happen in houses - we’d be making the most vulnerable people more, not less likely to be in danger. I don’t know what the answer is but years ago we had to get a god licence to own a dog - literally just paid for the bit of paper. I think public education (in schools etc) about safety around dogs and a system of training and certification for dog owenership could be a start.

In a lifelong lover of dogs, but I’m afraid it is the dogs, too - they have been selectively bred to have aggressive tendencies, not to mention looking intimidating, which is all too often why the thug-type owners want them.

Absolutely.Its the same as social services getting involved when a mother has got involved with a new boyfriend who is showing to be a danger to the children.You can have one or the other not both.The child should come first.

Question: Will the police really respond (attend) a report of an unmuzzled XLB?

My suspicion is not unless it’s actively attacking someone.

I have just checked govuk - the xl bully is a banned dog - police can remove the even if they are not acting dangerously.

Sorry havent read full thread, this may already have been said.

Sorry, I mean banned in England and Wales

I certainly hope so. Some were quick enough to attend when someone wasnt wearing a mask in a supermarket and this is certainly more dangerous.

The last thing we need is school time spent on dogs and how to deal with dogs.

Where does this crazy view come from that the problems caused by dogs are for others to solve and not the owners?

I think safety around animals is as important to road safety. But I also think it’s something parents need to teach their kids

ive had 2 small kids try to hit my dog - 1 with a stick. They thought it was hilarious and the parents were totally wet about the whole thing. In reality I protected my dog and he’s a placid thing but a less predictable dog could have snapped. So to protect the child the parent needs to be more on it.

same goes for kids approaching my dog from behind and trying to cuddle him. Again, a less placid dog could be freaked by that and snap. If a kid wants to stroke a dog they should ask the owner. If the owner says no there is a good reason. I will tell my dog to sit and introduce him and then show them how he likes to be stroked. If my dog is uncomfortable (he isn’t as he’s used to kids) I would remove him. I do all of this to protect the child not my dog.

i have had parents encouraging their toddlers to approach and pet my dogs while they are eating, with me there, behind my campervan at a campsite before, to give one example. I swooped in and removed the child, the dogs didn’t react, but all dogs are capable of being dangerous. If you think it’s more cost efficient and effective overall to kill all the dogs who might cause harm and not educate anyone ever about how to recognise threatening behaviour and remove and protect themselves and their children then we disagree, I guess. Understanding when we’re under threat and how to be safe seems sensible to me.

I think there needs to be a massive crackdown on breeding any type of animal. Sick of seeing people breeding their dog to make easy money.

If a dog attacks anyone the owner is responsible. If it attacks a child, whatever the child has done, the dog should be put down.

The child will still be harmed, potentially with life changing injuries. The idea is to work together to reduce the likelihood of harm, in my view. Killing the dog once the harm is done doesn’t achieve that. We can’t change the shit people, and they’ve got the dangerous dogs. Your sense of entitlement won’t protect your children - education will

@Alltheyearround Have you watched it? The bloke gets his face licked off and nuzzled by his 155lb dog…. This does not help. That dog is probably well bred and the guy I imagine had his own Insta and spends hours training the dog.

People will take them, breed them not having a clue about health, temperament NOTHING but ££££££££££££££ that’s all they care about. You could do this with any breed, resulting in an unstable dog with health issues. All your adding in is weight, muscle and bite force. Nobody wants an inbred dog. Target the breeders.

The war is lost. Irresponsible people will just go underground, breed what they want, abuse it, kill it when needed. I doubt the people this article the OP posted had the dog exempted, I very much doubt it was a well bred dog.

A well bred dog of this type retails for thousands.