TW - Upsetting information: XL Bully attack *edited by MNHQ

[Citylightsarebright]

Another xl bully attack, this time it was in my home town last week.
An xl bully ran out of the house down the road and attacked the nearest dog it saw a little dauchshund ripping both its legs off, it took 4 men and two women to get the xl bully off the other dog. The other little dog is alive thanks to the bravery of other people there at the time , however it had to have both legs ( what was left of them ) amputated.
Its extremely sad. The owner of the dauchshund is an elderly lady who was out walking the little dog ans she is utterly traumatised as expected.
The dog has been seized and owners will be prosecuted we have been told.
The reason I'm posting this is because I feel prosecution and dog being seized hasnt really solved anything has it? What is being done to prevent what happened in the first place? Nothing?? These dogs are still attacking / killing animals and children/ adults
Am I being unreasonable in thinking enough isnt being done to get rid of these hurrendous dogs?????

I work with dangerous dogs. I would say we euthanise at least 1 XL a week for aggression. Last weekend we had 3 that had attacked in separate incidents (things like killing another dog in the home so not reported widely) They have unstable and unpredictable temperaments.

Saying that, it’s almost always the responsible owners making the decision. The irresponsible ones just hide them away or live in denial hoping for the best until it’s too late.

Curious, isn't it ... the apologists for this breed are lamenting how mean and hateful people are towards them. Not a word of regret for the animals and humans they kill and maim. Not a hint of pattern recognition. No, it's people expressing opinions that this type - bred specifically to do this, to be killing machines - are too dangerous to be kept, who are at fault.

Yabu; not enough is being done to deal with the people whose lives are so tiny they thing having such a dog it somehow clever or that they are beating the system by 'proving' how lovable these dogs are.

Not the dog. The thick as mince owners

@FinalInstructionstotheAudience did you read any of the posts about the inescapable genetics involved? The best trainer in the world couldn't eradicate those traits. No argument that the owners are thick as mince (an insult to mince, really) but that's not what makes this type of dog the enormous danger it is.

"It's not the dog it's the owners."

So? Guns don't kill peoples, people do. Maybe we should allow guns.

I have a lovely pet polar bear. Not aggressive at all. Can I keep him at home? Walk him around my local park? It's not my fault some people aren't nice to their polar bears and make them aggressive.

Or is that different because polar bears haven't been domesticated and bred to live with humans as companions? In that case we are admitting the importance of how dogs have been bred for years. These dogs have specifically been bred to be aggressive fighters.

There's loads of situations we do not allow things, like guns and polar bears, because of the devastation they can cause. It may be true that 99% of people would be responsible but we disallow them anyway so that innocent people don't suffer because of the 1% who would not be responsible.

At this point it's frankly ridiculous that people can walk around with what is a lethal and unpredictable weapon and we just have to hope our children don't get killed because the nice dog owners who just happened to choose an exceptionally dangerous breed as a pet don't think it's fair.

Yeah it's weird that people seem to hate these dogs so much. Almost as if we've been watching almost weekly footage of animals and humans being ripped to shreds by the lovable, misunderstood little creatures. So sad for them.

My Labrador has been bred to retrieve. It's in his genes. These fighting-type dogs have been bred to kill. It's in their genes. Saying it's (only) the owners is disingenuous.

Love dogs, but these monsters should be outlawed, by which I mean put down. And the idiotic people : awwww, he/she is a family dog, very sweet. No, just look at it - it was bred for malice, look at the jaws.

For those people who say it’s not the breed and there’s a media conspiracy. The numbers really speak for themselves. This is in the US, but as XL Bullies are derived from American pit bulls - it aligns.

@muddyford sorry I don't know if you're agreeing or disagreeing with my post but I'm saying the same thing as you. I'm responding to those who say it's the owners to to explain why a) even if it were true, we should ban them anyway and b) to point out that they were bred specifically to be dangerous.

Agreeing!

Throughout 22/23 it really did feel as if a fatal dog attack happened weekly. That wasn’t quite accurate but by way of an example there were two fatal dog attacks 2018, three 2019 and two 2020. 2021 there are three - with two being towards the end of the year and involving an XL Bully.

Then there are TEN in 2022 - so the same amount as in the previous four years combined. Four are XLs - so it’s still a bad year for dog attacks even without the breed.

Then in 2023 we have nine - six are XL Bullies.

So far in 2024 there have been five fatalities and three involve XL Bullies.

I don’t think we’re ever going to get to a point there are no fatalities at all but it has jumped up massively in the last three years. It baffles me why people are so insistent it isn’t the breed when out of the hundreds of breeds it’s only a tiny handful involved in human deaths. It’s almost always a bull breed.

I don’t give a shit about the owners. It’s the dog.

I wish all bull breeds had been banned. My dog was attacked by a pitbull mix and it was horrific. Nothing to trigger it, she was beside me and sitting. It took guys from a building site with a metal pole to get the dog off. One of them said if it was a child or small dog they would have been likely killed. The vet said injuries from bull breeds are more like dealing with traffic injuries than a typical dog bite where there is a snap and release. They see crush injuries, flesh torn so badly sections have to be removed, arterial injuries, etc.

A problem is other mixes of bull breeds, to get 'legal' pitbull or XL bully type dogs. Retrievers retrieve, herders herd and can do it effectively, dogs bred for fighting have those instincts. There will of course be some that are nice, but it is not worth the risk. Plus when you look at dogs that have been abused or dumped, it is primarily bull breeds. Labelling them as different dogs (you see this with US shelters, with 'Lab type dogs') is dangerous for inexperienced potential owners.

I thought they all had to be neutered?

I am a dog lover and would usually say 'no bad dog, only bad owners' but surely enough is enough now with this breed of dog. With this particular breed it is innate in them to behave the way they do. Yes I know there are other breeds with their size and power but won't attack like this breed does.

I don't think it's enough to have them muzzled and it's not fair on the dog for it to be muzzled all the time. When these dogs lose it their is nothing anyone can do due to their sheer strength and power in their jaws.

Absolutely, pitbulls, XL bullies and similar are breeds bred to fight and those instincts and the capacity for severe damage are there.

These statistics would probably be even worse if there was not an issue in the US to get around breed specific legislation by mislabelling pitbulls as mixed/boxers/lab type dogs.

I know of some XL bullies in the UK the owner calls 'mastiffs', but they are clearly XL bullies and aggressive/reactive.

I think those saying it's the owners, part of that is the sort of owners that get these kind of dogs. They are more likely to go out their way to get an aggressive looking/potential to act dog, and not look after it properly therefore not muzzle train, exercise, socialise appropriately, follow the exemption law. Perhaps not be able to afford correct vet care as well. I agree with the above PP who said it's primarily bull breeds that are dumped etc

I work in a vets and we have one or two clients with dogs that come under the XL bully legislation, the dogs are 7/8 years old, and are known breeds such as American bulldog X staffy or even one is a french bulldog X staffy but just comes under the fit for an XL bully. They have done the right things and the dogs are exempt and follow the law, they've not had any issues in their whole life.

Then the others who phone up saying they can't afford to neuter them to get the exemption certificate, or they've just got one (why would you get one in the current circumstances), their family member has gone to prison and left them with their XL bully etc. or they are 1/2 years old and being brought in for PTS and are aggressive as they've never been to a vet, never been socialised etc, and this may be judgemental but they have names like Chaos and Karma, I feel like shows the attitude of the owners not the dog

In the case of XL Bullies the owner can dog debate overlaps because

A) they are genetically unstable / the result of hideous breeding practices mainly in pursuit of money and money laundering

And

B) they are the breed most likely to be neglected or abused

Meaning you often have a large, temperamentally unstable dog placed in a difficult life and the result is tragedy. Even those in kind times now have often had poor breeding and poor puppy experiences.

Yes, they needed to be banned. My concern is that even if this breed slowly dies out there will be others to replace it. Other large breeds that can be genetically selected in shitty back street 'labs' to produce a meaner looking dog with the same temperament problems the XL has now.

Personally, I'd bring back dog licences linked to a qualification to own a certain weight dog. The bigger the weight, the more you need to demonstrate knowledge of dog behaviour and safe handling.

Yes and people will still find ways to get around the ban, which is again owners being determined to keep getting breeds like that not the dogs, I had a phone call asking for a neuter estimate for an exotic bully... I asked the weight to give the estimate and she said somewhere between a pocket bully and XL bully, but small so they are not illegal
Dogs aren't breeding themselves like that it's the wrong kind of owners trying to keep the breed around

My son nearly lost the use of his hand when he was around 4 years old and it wasn't a pit bull type of dog. It was a golden retriever. That was the owners fault she fed it near my son and hers and my son moved and it grabbed him by the wrist. Twenty odd years later and the scars are still very visible. That was the end of that friendship, the police came out as the hospital have to report dog bites. The police did nothing.

My gosh that’s horrendous
I saw an xl bully near us last week (don’t ever see them here) it was in a work man’s van and was un leashed and un muzzled in his van window slightly a jar both ears totally clipped off it looked evil which is a strange thing to say but I’d never seen one so close it was huge and started barking aggressively whenever another dog walked past! I would have been worried if he’d opened the door if we were near or another dog passing by! Any why clip the ears off!! It looked hideous and much worse than it would already have

Breed specific legislation will work- but slowly. It will take a while for these dogs to die out. In the meantime in my area Mastiffs and Cane Corsos are increasing.

Someone asked what happened next, what happens when you get the attacking dog off-
My lurcher was attacked by an Akita. It ripped at his throat, and my dog dropped. I screamed and raged and roared at it and it backed off a bit, and I had to keep at it, intimidating and staying between it and my boy. Neighbours helped my dog, then more neighbours helped chase off the Akita while another drove me and mine to the vet. He survived but was never the same. Aged dramatically.

In this case, the Akita was totally focused on the dog and kept trying to get round us to get to him. We felt fairly safe as his gaze and aggression was focused on the dog.

It takes bravery, but I think you can see whether the attacker is going for you or the other dog, and having multiple people involved helps. I guess as well, when it’s neighbours getting involved, they know the aggressive dog as well so are a bit more confident in what they are dealing with. In the same way I wouldn’t hesitate to grab something dangerous from my dog. No matter how much he wants it, he wouldn’t hurt me.

Whenever there is a thread like this someone will come on with a similar story about retrievers or spaniels biting and it must have been horrible.

But you could still see it was a hand. He didn’t, in the end, lose use of it. He was 4. XL bullies have killed fit, healthy adult males. How many retrievers have managed that?