If you own an X-L Bully (or similar breed) why did you get it?

[Kinut]

I’m not trying to cause a pile on, I’m genuinely curious to hear from owners on here.

I would guess the vast majority of owners on Mumsnet consider themselves responsible owners and their dog to be no threat. I often see it said that the dog is harmless/more likely to lick you to death/soft/great with the kids etc. but why did you opt for that breed?

You obviously wanted a family pet, and obviously care about the safety of yourself and loved ones, and you didn’t want a guard dog or to intimidate the public.

So why opt for a bully type and not another large dog with less surrounding controversy and innate risk? As I say, I don’t want a raft of insults towards owners, Im just curious as to why otherwise normal and responsible owners opt for these breeds?

I also have the kind of dog that is docile of breed and unlikely to be able to do much harm to anyone however, I would never make the kind of silly, overly confident comments owners of potentially more dangerous breeds or sizes of dogs, make. I would never suggest my dog could never be dangerous or leave it unsupervised with others, I particularly watch it carefully with children, even though to date my dog seems to love children (certainly my own child and his friends) that he's grown up with since a puppy. I'm just not silly enough to not recognise things can go wrong with any dog. It appears that things do go wrong disproportionately with the XL Bully breed and when they do they are very difficult to stop and can be catastrophic. A relative of mine had one years ago around very young kids, I never met the dog and at some point they got rid of it - whether something happened I don't know. But I still can't imagine what they were thinking. Mind you their track record for poor decisions is high so I would call it a lack of judgement. I just wouldn't personally have a dog I wouldn't have a good chance of getting off me - if it did attack. I'm a dog lover too and have had dogs my entire life.

They are now though, we owned Rottweilers when they got a very bad press back in the late 80’s early 90’s. We had three and the absolute outrage from people at the time when we walked them was insane.

I don't get why anyone owns a dog that intimidates strangers, its so antisocial

I assume you would try and understand the views of people who support Putin, perhaps he’s just misunderstood and he’s trying to help the Ukrainian people? Or would you think they were stupid too?

So why opt for a bully type and not another large dog with less surrounding controversy and innate risk? As I say, I don’t want a raft of insults towards owners, Im just curious as to why otherwise normal and responsible owners opt for these breeds?

Because they want to look hard.

That being said, I've seen some pretty serious dog bites fro Golden Retrievers and Labradors. But that usually happens because those owners make mistake after mistake after mistake (not deliberately) - whereas XL Bully etc (and in that I include people who get a dog to 'intimidate or scare' people) owners, deliberately do not raise their dog properly and believe in nonsense like 'pack theory.'

Perhaps controversial, but I think the dog people buy says a lot about them as a person - particular people buy particular types of dogs.

I absolutely love bull breeds.

I used to have one big when I got her it was German shepherds and then Rottweilers that were the ‘dangerous’ breed and then it went to staffies where every newspaper had an image of a snarling staffy and people wanted them banned.

When I was younger it was Dobermans that everyone was afraid of and they were the guard dogs.

I have worked with dogs and (apart from the small breeds) the dogs I’ve had most problems with are collies, spaniels and huskies.
The bull breeds were the softest out of the lot.

I think any dog can be aggressive and yes a bull breed can do more damage but an aggressive collie can do more damage than a non aggressive bully.

I think we just need stricter laws on dog ownership and then there will be less problems.
Theres no point blaming a breed when the breed changes.

Saviour complex

Drug dealer/other sort of criminal

Gullible

Lion-tamer syndrome

Low IQ

Attention seeker

Antisocial

I wouldn’t own a Rottweiler but they are different.

They have killed children, as have XL Bullies. But the real glaring difference in XL Bullies and other dangerous breeds is that the majority of the victims aren’t children, they are adults, many of them men who were otherwise fit and healthy.

Any dog could injure a grown man but there actually aren’t many who on their own could kill. In the period between 1980-1999, only one adult death from dogs is reported. Thats not an extensive list but even so, from 2000 to 2010 we see only one adult death from a dog attack. Two adults died as a result of bites which led to sepsis and three died when they were attacked after an epileptic seizure. The other fatalities were all children, most under five.

Then 2010 - 2020 there are more attacks. A total of ten fit adults, I’ve discounted the very elderly and epileptic seizure victims there.

Still, when you compare that to the attacks from XL Bullies, in the period between 2020 and present there have been fourteen healthy adults, many of them males. Adam Watts is one that should give anyone fostering them pause for thought.

But do you not at least acknowledge that bull dogs WERE bred for bull baiting and fighting originally?

If someone brought home a collie as a family pet do you not think it might start herding random things even if the family never train it to do so? Do you think if you never teach a retriever to retrieve it never will?

Do you think no dogs that have been bred as working dogs ever do their inbred behaviours without specific training? Do you think its just coincidence that sheep farmers choose collies to do it?

Bull dogs were bred to be aggressive and not to let go or give up during fights. It’s just a fact. I’m not saying every single dog will attack. But can you honestly not even acknowledge that the reason these bull dogs seem more likely to do so could be due to long standing breeding?

Or is it all other dogs that have specific traits bred into them is a thing but for bull dogs it’s definitely not?

But the dogs are too strong for a human to control so no amount of justifying why someone has one makes any sense.

I’ll probably get shot down here but I don’t understand it myself.

As much as I adore large powerful breeds, looking at the frequency of attacks and the fact they are even attacking their own owners, I think there is something much deeper going on at a genetic level.

There are different types of aggression in dogs which have different triggers. For example fear aggression is not the same as rage in a dog. I have even contemplated that mixing the relevant breeds to create XLs could somehow be incompatible with each other and may have unwittingly created a genetic switch in their brains that just makes them snap into rage which other breeds would not respond to.

I just don’t know, but as a long term owner of large breeds even I am starting to think there is something inherently not right in the wiring of their brains which causes these uncontrollable rages. I would not choose to own one myself.

Not controversial, not really...

Where I'm from, Cane Corso is a dickheads' dog of choice. XL bully fashion somehow passed us by (or maybe we're behind, hopefully not), but lots of 'real' men (in their minds) own cane corsos. It's a specific type of owner, BMW driving, closely shaven, roid-muscled, tracksuit wearing homegrown chav. Aggressive, misogynistic, sexist, road-ragey.

I'm from a small town where people know each other/of each other. I've seen a few corso owners and I do know them/about them. One is a wife-beating cop, one drug dealer, one a bog standard chav, hated by neighbours for noise at all hours, etc. One lives not too far from my family and always looks and smirks at my brother, who is walking his dog - a corgi.

These types used to own rottweilers, staffies and pitbulls back in a day. Now cane corsos. No one will convince me all of them just looove these dogs best of all dogs, for their wonderful character and whatnot. My sibling's corgi has a wonderful character. A very intelligent, always smiley, cheerful, funny, friendly doggie, we all love him to bits. Yet you won't look hard walking a corgi..

This is terrifying

Here we go again.

Theres zero proof that Kimbos genetics are in any of the XL bullies that have killed.

There are (or were, they are probably still breeding) breeders claiming that their dogs were related to Kimbo, but as the pedigrees are literally produced on someones computer with no actual proof, nor checks of any kind, and such people are closely linked to serious crimes... its likely very few, if any, are actually related.

That particular organisation has been asked (multiple times now) how many dogs in the UK have DNA links to Kimbo.

So far, zero response, at all. They have no proof for this claim.

I think its likely that some of these dogs (who are all crossbreeds to one degree or another) have the A22 gene and many have had some horrific housing, upbringing, and some have also had intentional training in 'protection' work which seems to involve a lot of goading the dog into biting a sleeve or bite suit, and then beaten the dog round the head with sticks whilst it hangs on and won't let go (if it lets go it gets a shock from a shock collar in some cases).

There is currently very big money in training members of the publics dogs to attack and bite and hold on cue, and those who can't afford to pay can simply watch myriad TikTok and Youtube videos showing you how to train your dog to do this.

If you breed easily aroused, easily frustrated, hard playing, hard biting dogs, with dodgy temperaments in shitty housing, fail to meet their needs, fail to train appropriately and instead train using suppression and punishment, even if you DON'T then train the dog to actively bite people, you're creating a dangerous animal.

I was going to answer this post in good faith but seems people have already made up their minds.

I have owned a large dominate breed dog for the last 20 years (obviously different actual dogs but the same breed) when all the XL bully stuff started I genuinely felt sorry for them. I absolutely blamed the owners for any attacks.

I decided to rescue one (grown up kids, large secure garden, extensive experience with large breed dogs)

Long story short is I gave this dog a great home. He was rarely left alone, walked for hours, fully registered, taken to run free fields, fed a raw diet. The only negative thing that happened was he got in two fights with my older dog. These fights were split up quickly with neither dog injured. We decided to keep the dogs apart to avoid any further fights until the XL could be neutered (vet wanted to wait until he was 18 months old before neutering) I loved this dog, he never once showed any aggression to people. One day he had just been out a long walk, on returning he managed to run through the door as the person walking him went through. He ran for my older dog and they started fighting, they were separated by a strong man, he put the XL bully into the garden to defuse the situation. As he closed the door, the XL bully jumped up and bit his arm twice, level 4 bites, which required hospital treatment as an outpatient for 3 weeks.

I had the dog pts the next day. It broke my heart and still causes me a lot of distress. People blame the owners (I did) but this dog wanted for nothing, he was loved, walked, cared for, trained etc.

The vet told us that this was the fourth XL bully that he has had to pts. All with similar stories to ours, he said “they’re all fine until they’re not” I have since done a lot of reading up on them, and although many of them will be fine, there is a significant number that are ticking time bombs and their strength and bite force obviously make them exceptionally dangerous.

To answer your question I rescued one because I felt sorry for them, and I believed that I had the experience and lifestyle to provide an excellent safe home. It was a very hard life lesson and I still contemplate if it was my fault and if I could have done things differently.

Should also add that although I “rescued” the dog. His previous owners were lovely and just couldn’t keep him because of the ban. Nothing bad had ever happened to him.

because they want to look hard

thing is with the ban, its more prevention in its idea than blame. If there are no XL bullys eventually - no issue
Those still unfortunately alive, will be restrained etc - but it does not account for the one who escape/attack owners etc. I feel for those who are attacked who have nothing to do with the dog e.g passers by

they all need culling, and every single dog owner needs to be licenced

dog owner.

My dog looks like a Dobby the elf crossed with a deer and I think still he's beautiful 🤣

I can attest that collies herd everything, my gran's collie /GSD was getting out of the car and she saw some sheep, I've never seen a dog run so fast. She was even doing the lying down thing you see in sheep dog trials.

Luckily it wasn't lambing season or god knows what could have happened.

She was partially trained as she used to bring cows in for milking.

She used to spend most of our walks making sure we were all still there.

Ha, my friends collie herds people, never mind sheep!

This is an embarrassing reply.

Poor analogy.

The Op is respectfully trying to understand the reason for ownership as she recognises that ownership doesn’t imply stupidity.

We hardly ever see any where we live, but recently DD and I were at the park and saw a young man with one on a lead. The dog was white and his mouth was particularly striking - very prominent and red. Dd and I decided to leave the area immediately such was the anxiety we experienced seeing that dog.

My friends son and my DH’s nephew both have one, they undoubtedly got them to boost their perceived masculinity. One has named it after a famous drug dealer 🙄 The other has just had a baby boy and keeps putting up pics of him lying next to this killing machine. Gives me so much anxiety.