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.

In my view the answer to the question posed by @GasPanic is that the owner of the dog should bear the costs.
Yes there are a small number of working dogs but by and large keeping a pet is a hobby- something you do for your own entertainment and amusement. If a dog is a nuisance, if it causes any damage or injury then the owner should face consequences and bear the costs.

It's not the dog, it's the owner imho. There are some dogs that sadly are genetically predisposed to violent behaviour, ie generations of breeding specifically for dog fights. Why then, are people attracted to those types of dogs? Hence I say it's the owner and not the dog.

My husband loves Yorkshire Terriers, I don't mind them. I like Huskies and Labradors, but as my husband says you can't pick them up, take them hostage and put them in the bath very easily like you can Yorkies if they've rolled around in mud or fox poop 😂

Also, I have noticed some dogs are muzzled while out on their walks. That tells me the dog is not totally safe in public. So what's the appeal? I don't want a dog to be muzzled or restrained, I want to say hi to them and pet them!

I would just ban XL bullies and order them to be destroyed. The number of families with young kids that have them is frightening. Licensing won’t work as the crap people won’t do it.

Northern ireland has dog licensing. Its about £13/year and an offense not to have one

In the 7 years we've owned our dog and a license no one has ever asked about it or checked it. I dont think even half of the other people we know who own dogs have one.

I've also never seen a dog warden.

I guess there's probably loads of reasons people dont bother, laziness, not aware etc. There's also a small minority here who register their pets with meets under friends and family as certain benefits mean smaller vet fees.

It must be possible to create a phone app which would scan the chip which is implanted into dogs.
If it was mandatory for dogs to be chipped then anyone who wanted to could download the app, discreetly scan any passing and report those dogs which didn't have a chip.
A kind of ANPR system for dogs.

Can we add off lead friendly dogs; and dickheads who leave their dog home alone for 12+ hours a day and never give it a walk in their life?

They are already banned and yet they still strut around, unmuzzled.

Through your digital ID with automatic fines taken direct from your bank account.

Putting in a fairly low amount of effort into google will suggest this is wrong, and that dog attacks requiring hospital treatment are steadily on the increase
You are correct and I am wrong. It is a significant increase, and that's admission rather than A&E trips.
Dog ownership has increased by 23% whilst admissions have increased by 43%, so a proportionate increase, although we do have to point that total numbers are still very low. 13 millions dogs for under 10,000 attacks requiring admission. For comparison, there were almost 4000 admissions dueto knife attacks with an increase of almost 60% in a similar period. In 2023, there were 16 deaths due to dog attacks in England and Wales, there were 224 deaths by knife attacks that same year.

I didn't vote because whilst I agree with you that the clamp down should be harder on bull breeds and their crosses, a new harsher licence for all dog owners is unfair.

The gutter residing type of people that own this sort of dog will simply not bother getting a licence.

Law abiding decent people will be the ones that get punished, the ones that have more to their lives than the divs that want to own mental, aggressive dogs.

Plus the government will just see it as a cash cow which will punish decent people far more than the bull/bull cross trash.

I did and I would not consider her to be a responsible owner

We have three dogs, small breed. All insured, chipped and never off lead. I’d have no problem with having a license for them.
As many people have said, the bad owners just won’t bother getting a license or insurance.

Car number plates are visible to the many many cameras around the country.

Microchips are not.

Car numberplates are still only actually read when there is an issue, erratic driving, speeding, etc - they don't prevent people from breaking the law or killing people with their cars, and those who actively want to do things, will use false/cloned plates.

There are thousands of cameras - we have a tiny handful of dog wardens.

A chip requires a dog to stand still whilst the scanner is waved thoroughly all over the dog, as despite the chip point being behind the neck/top of shoulders, chips can and do move (commonly enough that of my three current dogs, only one has a chip in the right place, and to date I have had five dogs with chips that have migrated).

The chip database situation is a nightmare - there is no central database, chip companies are not managing the data they have particularly well (eg. dogs flagged as stolen being dumped at rescue and the 'stolen' flag ignored or even removed rather than original owner contacted). Chip companies go out of biz and leave owners of chipped animals screwed, merge databases and lose data entirely, and have varying processes (and charges) for updating chip info meaning it doesn't get done.

There is a lot of infrastructure to put in before licencing is possible, before licencing could fund it. In the past, when you bought a dog licence in the post office, the system did not break even and this is why it was scrapped.

There is a lot that needs to be done before licencing would be useful.

• Regulate the training industry - currently its perfectly legal to set up shop as a trainer or even a behaviourist, slap a shock collar on a dog, turn it into a nervous aggressive nightmare then hand it back to the owner and threaten them with all sorts should they complain.
• Ban the training/sales of 'family protection' dogs - a dog who can safely play with your toddler and take out a bad guy, trained to attack/bite on cue - such a dog does not exist. The perpetuation of the idea that they do has led to many people who cannot afford to import and pay for the training of such a dog (as the tiktok celebs do), to attempt to train these themselves - see my earlier point.
• Regulate heavily the bite sports industry - dogs trained to hold a person at bay, find and bite a person and not let go until told to, chase and bring a person down. Currently, again, anyone can train this, anyone can own such a dog. Again, this is very popular with people who want to use methods like shock collars and force based, pain based training, that has been proven over and over to increase the risk of bite injuries and violent aggression in dogs.
• Look at setting up an ownership test as some other countries do - where you have to exhibit a reasonable degree of knowledge on dog ownership, dog behaviour, training and the law around dogs.
• Ban the commercial farming of dogs on an intensive scale - easily done if you legally require there to be 1 member of staff in the facility for every 3 dogs, at all times.

Well no, neither would I but the OP obviously did.

There are plenty of people out there who believe they are responsible owners but others would beg to differ.

The police no longer investigate crime in this country, so who would police it? Criminals are already getting away with drug dealing, people trafficking, shoplifting, money laundering to name a few crimes. A loose dog isn't going to suddenly have plod investigating and inspecting licences. It's getting like the wild west here now.

But that’s never used as a reason to abandon driving licenses or car insurance altogether though.

People like that don’t care about fines though - or prison sentences. That’s why it’s always the same repeat offenders doing the same things, regardless of the consequences.

But again, the people who get fined won’t care - they’ll just keep going. Just like they do with driving bans and associated fines.

This is also a point. My dog is chipped. I bought a chip detector as I am often everyone's 'go to' for animals that are lost or injured (just a background in rescue). My detector doesn't find my dog's chip.

Companies are rubbish-I was on hold literally for HOURS trying to get my dog's address changed once. Gave up in the end, emailed them but never got a response-luckily my ex still lives at my old address so if they'd have contacted her rather than me it wouldn't have really mattered, I'd have still got the mesg.

I rescued a dog a few years ago and when I rang to change the address they gave me a rollocking, charged me a not-too-insubstantial amount and then it didn't work! He got lost once (not while in my care) and they called the old owner. Shambles.

Our neighbours dog is lovely, she’s muzzled as despite intensive and consistent training she will do anything in her power to eat poo. Lots of dogs wear muzzles to stop them eating things on walks.

I did not know that. Thanks.

Phones do not have the required technology, you would also have to have your phone indirect contact with the fur/skin over the microchip area. For our dog thats his right armpit, how would you do that discreetly?

There have been no fatalities though so the policy is working. I’m not sure what the definition of a dog attack is - would be very useful info. It could include incidents like the lady yesterday with a chihuahua that bit a ladies hand, which I’d call unfortunate but not a serious attack in the context of the dangerous dogs act.

One other issue about licensing is that it could include much stricter licence conditions for un neutered owners dogs

I wish the microchip system could be sorted.

If we had a single chip database - which could only be updated by the owner, breeder, registered rescues and vets...

And crucially - data can never be removed from the chip or database - so the chip will show every owner from breeder to current day...

And the onus is on both seller and buyer to update the chip on selling/rehoming... if someone is found to own a dog and they're not on the chip record, big penalty to both current keeper and previous owner!

And... legally if you're on that dogs record you stand a chance of being held liable for something that dog does... so you sell the dog, it immediately eats a kid - your actions/behaviour/housing/training of that dog might be looked at...

Everyones going to behave a lot more responsibly!

We could link vet records, incidents that involved police/dog warden, attendance to training classes, to the dogs chip and thus to the owner at the time.

It would still require a chip to be scanned to reveal that information, I don't really envisage a 'stop and scan' situation happening routinely.

But - a database like that and joined up thinking, costs a lot to set up. We've not had a government in my lifetime that wants to do that, vs passing useless laws that make it look like they're doing something when really they aren't.

There have been seven XL Bully related deaths since Feb 24, bump that up to 11 (I think) if you include some pitbull, mastiff and malinois involvement.

There are also dogs who were not exempted being siezed, and then subsequently returned once exempted.

There are dogs who were exempted who are now being de-exempted which means they can once again run off lead, not wear a muzzle etc etc - because on assessment they do not fit the physical criteria sufficiently and their behaviour isn't deemed dangerous.

Unless something is done to stop the rise of aversive trainers, people training household pets to be attack dogs, and irresponsible breeding, the numbers of deaths will increase again.