Dog attacks still increasing - is it time to bring back proper licensing?

[NewHome2026]

Article in the BBC this morning

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgvy2yyv8mo

If it were me I would make it like a driving license, you have to pass a test and you get points if you violate the rules. Too many points and your dog is taken away.

The XL Bully ban was too soft and ineffective - if anyone could get an exemption, what is the point of it? I would say that they should have all been destroyed but i don’t think that stops the bigger problem of people owning inappropriate animals for their lifestyle or experience…and inventing a new muscly status dog. Nobody needs a dog bred for fighting so playing this game of whack-a-mole is pointless.

When you say 'bring back', what was the law like before that you would like it to go back to?

That’s interesting, op.
I was under the impression it was working to some extent because as far as I can see there have been zero fatal dog attacks here since February, while in the same period last year there were 6.
That would fit with what the plastic surgeon in the article says.
It’s not surprising if dog bites overall aren’t going down because the number of badly trained dogs across all breeds appears to be going up.

How do you propose to enforce this licensing?

Well there was dog licensing before but to be honest I would change it and make it stricter. It would be like a driving license and enforced in the same way as being allowed to drive a car is. Paid for by the fees required to take lessons, pay for insurance and take the test.

Do you really think the muppets who buy a completely unsuitable dog from a bloke in a pub would get a dog licence?
Because those are the dogs that attack people, I know any breed can bite but its never a Labrador from Harrogate when someone is killed or badly injured

This.

If people are muzzling their XL Bullies in public and/or buying other breeds instead, then the number of serious attacks and fatalities will fall. I definitely haven't heard of as many serious attacks since the ban.

So, SO many people drive cars without a license, insurance or any sort of paperwork. I used to be a police despatcher-the people who drive without licenses simply do not care. They're often born into a life of crime and are taught to drive when they're about 13 by Dad who also has never had a license. They go to court, get a short prison sentence even, so what? That's just what happens. Then they get out, straight back behind the wheel.

As a PP has said, dog licenses would be much the same. The folk who care would get one sure, but they aren't the same folk whose dog is an untrained status symbol and likely to bite or attack.

Hi @NewHome2026 great post and thank you for sharing.

You will, as is inevitable on AIBU, get gaslit by plenty of posters saying "in my area there are now NO dog attacks, therefore you're wrong".

Despite there being a BBC article linked to this thread explaining dog attacks are RISING.

But you will get gaslit.

You know why, we all know why.

• Us British people don't like being told what to do
• People in the UK tend not to like over regulation
• They love their pets more than humans and can't wait to tell you so

So any post which is trying to introduce necessary critical debate around dog ownership, will get shouted down by the "my dog is well behaved and I live in a nice area, you must be hallucinating OP" despite all the statistical evidence that supports your view.

In short..... good luck with the thread.

Easy, all dogs are chipped.

You pay the license against the chip code online.

Those that pay the licence fund dog wardens that have chip readers.

Wardens read dog chips with chip readers, which automatically connects to a central register that says whether the licence has been paid.

It works for car numberplates.

Sorry, but the people with dogs who aren't trained, aren't looked after properly, aren't insured and so on aren't going to get a licence for their dog.
Go head and bring it in, I'll get one, but my small, gentle, welltrained, well socialised well treated dog is not and will never be a threat to anyone and is insured to cover accidents etc.

Exactly
I would happily get one if needeed but my dog is never out of control and would be vanishingly unlikely to bite anyone if he wasn't

The ban wasn't strong enough.

Licensing wouldn't make the slightest difference. Utterly pointless.

These breeds need to be destroyed.

So if they are caught without a licence they will be punished, in the same way people who don't have MOTs insurance or tax are punished.

At the end of the day this boils down to something really simple.

There are an increasing amount of dogs in society and their presence has an impact and a cost on the whole of society.

The fundamental question is, should those costs be paid by the people who own the dogs, or society as a whole ?

This poster thought their dog was well trained and friendly, until it wasn't.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_doghouse/5421794-my-dog-bit-an-old-lady

I’ve literally never seen a dog warden and have walked my dog multiple times a day every day for 5 years.

There would need to be an awful lot of people recruited to presumably walk the streets to check random dogs and their owners licences to enforce this. So a lot of cost, ignoring the cost to implement the system.

And I say this as the owner of a small dog who is never off lead and with multiple skills/activity classes that we regularly attend - so someone who would easily have a licence.

I don’t object in principle, but there are other places I want my tax monies spent first.

You probably don't see dog wardens because there is no money to pay for them. Hence the licence.

I actually think the vast majority of dog owners would support this. Because people who are law abiding and own trained well behaved dogs are just as worried about dangerous dogs attacking them and their pets as people who don't own dogs are.

My guess is (I don't know the stats) that dogs are much more in danger of being killed by other out of control dogs than humans are.

I'm not sure how this would work for dogs around now.

The chip registries are a mess and often people move and don't let the registry know, or discover that the registry wants to charge them £70 to change the address for two dogs so they don't bother. Chips migrate and can be very difficult to find. Our old dog had one that ended up right down his shoulder somewhere. It's not like a car numberplate which can be read by a camera as the car zooms by.

The whole microchip system was badly thought out in the first place and would need a massive overhaul, a centralised database, and everyone having to ensure that their dog was on it with the correct details.

In theory it could be made to work, but the initial costs will put most governments off even trying.

The people that buy such dogs won’t be the type that buy a licence.

Im seeing more dogs out and about in muzzles, which I suppose is more a sign they’re worried about the police pulling them up and at least other animals are safe.

Quite, which is why responsible dog owners don't allow a dog off lead unless its under control.

But cars are by necessity outside, or they're not causing people any problems. So many of the dogs causing these problems were due to their completely incompetent owners, which often included the fact that they weren't adequately exercised - the problems were mainly indoors.

I'm another who read this article this morning and thought that, dog attacks (or reports thereof, perhaps, rather than incidences?) might be increasing, but the XL Bully ban has surely worked to some extent in that we're not getting the reports of people being killed that we were seeing?

I'm pretty sure that if the government can do an ID card scheme for people it can do one for dogs, which should be easier. And the cost of it is recovered through the licence.

Alternatively everyone as a society can continue to pay the cost. Personally I don't see why I should have to pay to police dogs. In the same way I don't see why someone who doesn't own a car or watch broadcast TV should have to pay for mine.

I don't understand your point?

Except there are plenty of dogs out there who aren’t chipped - despite what the law says.

Our dog is chipped but he’s only ever been scanned for it once which is when he was registered at the vet as a puppy.

Just like there are loads of uninsured drivers and loads of cars that aren’t road legal, MOT’d or taxed.

These arguments just don't stand up to any sort of scrutiny.

It fundamentally amounts to saying that it is not worth punishing any crime, because there are always some people who will do it anyway.

Extend that to more serious crimes and it just sounds ridiculous, unless you believe that punishment/enforcement as a principle doesn't work.

The government has said it does not want to raise general taxes. If it doesn't want to raise general taxes like income tax, then it has to raise taxes from other areas.

Oh, it's possible. It's the up-front cost which will put the government off.