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.

No app would work as phones can not read the type of chips that pet microchips are (low frequency RDIF) . They simply do not have the capability.
Even if they could, you would never be able to do it discretely as they would have to be very close to the chip. You would be pretty much handling the dog.
Plus chips can and do migrate. My own dog's chip in at the at the top and front of her leg. So if you scanned her neck, you would think she has no chip at all.

Some dogs wear a muzzle because they're dog-aggressive rather than human aggressive too.

What happens if the dog bite gets infected ?

Or the person loses the use or feeling of their hand or fingers because the tendons are bitten through ?

Is that classed as serious ?

The view that there shouldn’t be licensing because some people will ignore it and it’ll be hard to enforce is really odd.

Murder is illegal but some people still do it and some of them get away with it. Shall we legalise that?

Taxi drivers need a licence but there are still
unlicensed taxis around, so shall we not bother?

Brilliant suggestion

I don't see how a post bite infection means the initial bite was serious. People can get sepsis from the most minor of injuries. Things like being pricked by a rose thorn can land someone in hospital.

Mine wears one because she's a greedy little fucker and will eat anything vaguely food-like that comes within her reach including half-decomposed seagull, dropped ice creams, slugs, a live crab that had to be pried from her mouth, seaweed, half a hamburger she found in a bush, and very-almost a splatter of (presumably human) vomit that we managed to by-pass by bare centimetres.

For comparison purposes..

When vehicles started needing registration and drivers needed licencing, around 1903 - there were under 13000 cars on the road. Even by the time you needed to pass a driving test to get that licence, in 1935 there were still only just over 2 million vehicles.

The vehicle licencing and registration system has grown as car ownership has grown, over many decades.

There are around 13.5 million dogs in the uk and I'd say thats a low estimate, as its mostly generated from insurance figures, and of course not all dogs are insured.

To bring in a comprehensive and useful database comparable to the DVLA for that many animals at once, would be extremely difficult and an up front cost that the taxpayer would absolutely baulk at.

As to the debate, my two-pence worth is that there need to be tougher rules around dog ownership.

• give police/councils stop and seize powers to take dogs into their keeping on the spot

• make dog bites requiring medical or veterinary treatment reportable incidents in the same way that certain medical conditions are notifiable to authorities. Dog wardens, police on patrol, etc can then target problem areas under various initiatives (and where the owner is known, the dog can be directly taken)

• dogs that bite get risk-assessed by a vet (at owners expense) no risk-assessment or a failed assessment = humanely destroyed

• dogs over a certain size and/or of a specific breed cannot be privately owned and can only be owned as certified working dogs

• inspection and licensing required for breeding dogs, all other dogs to be neutered. Get rid of sites like Pets4Homes, etc and make it so animals can only be bought and sold via approved channels (e.g., a gov.uk owned site). No "free to a good home" bullshit.

• insurance made compulsory including liability insurance for if your dog bites someone

• no dogs off-lead in public unless it's an approved area (e.g., licensed dog park)

• no dogs allowed to be in the care of under 18s in public (obviously dogs such as guide dogs would be exempt)

• proper certification for assistance dogs, no more Mitzy the Dickhead Dog being passed off an 'emotional support animal' just because the owner doesn't want them at home

• no dogs in shops that aren't a pet shop, guide dogs excepted

• if a cafe/pub allows dogs then they must also provide a dog-free area

No measure, or set of measures, will stop idiots owning dogs but they should make it more difficult to get away with it to minimise the number of idiots of dogs.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I agree completely - there needs to be a change in this attitude that you are entitled to have a dog and your is entitled to do whatever you want it to.

Blows my mind that dog bites requiring medical intervention do not already have to be reported to the police (unless it is a child I think).

Then people will get the next big aggressive dog. Google searches for Cane Corso for sale have really increased since the XL bully ban l

I would suggest that there should be some sort of 'cut off date' so that if you owned a dog prior to a particular date you could get a free licence covering that animal.

People aren’t saying there shouldn’t be licensing because it will be ignored.

They’re saying that because it will be ignored, it won’t do any of the things the OP hopes it will do. It will just be an added expense for responsible owners that makes no difference to the number of out of control dogs or attacks.

I disagree with this. Obviously the sort of nefarious people who deliberately own scary dogs and use them in gang wars won’t be deterred but there is a large spectrum between these people and those actually responsible dog owners including many who call themselves responsible but fail to do proper training, or respect the boundaries of other people who are not interested in interacting with their dog. These are people who are generally law abiding and accidents with these sorts of dogs would be reduced through proper licensing and regulation. Not all dog attacks are by dogs owned by thugs who train them to be aggressive. Many are from dogs owned by normally nice people who have a blind spot when it comes to their dog.

I don't think a dog licence would make any difference because responsible dog owners would get one and irresponsible dog owners wouldn't do so; and the cost of enforcing it would be huge at a time when councils are struggling with insufficient budgets.

My belief is that the problem should be dealt with at source. I don't know which Government department is in charge of monitoring imported breeds of dog - DEFRA?- or even if there is one, but there needs to be one set up urgently to monitor imported breeds and ban them before they set foot in the UK.
Both the XL Bully and the American Pitbull Terrier (banned under the original Dangerous Dogs Act) are American imports. The fatality (and bite) stats in the USA are crystal clear: both breeds can be extremely dangerous and have caused a high level of fatalities. This really should come as no surprise as both breeds are bred from the survivors of Pitbull fights. They've not been bred to herd sheep, retrieve game, run swiftly or be a companion animal. They have been selectively bred to kill. It beggars belief that either breed was allowed to be imported onto our island in the first place and surprise, surprise what happened in the States is exactly what happened here. I'm not usually in favour of a nanny state but unfortunately there seems to be a subsection of our dog-owning population who view a dog as the legal alternative to owning a gun; and the more menacing and powerful the dog is the better. In most cases the owners are not experienced dog owners accustomed to successfully raising and handling guard breeds, which would at least be a start. In too many cases, they are amateurs or this is the owner's first dog and for reasons of bravado, arrogance and utter stupidly they choose to introduce one as a family 'pet' very often living with their children. Not only that, before the ban, the owners were exercising these creatures unmuzzled in a public place with no realistic prospect of physically controlling their dog as they are simply too powerful. We all know the outcome of that scenario. And it's not only human beings they've killed; countless innocent dogs and cats have been fatally attacked by them.
It would be incorrect to state that every XL Bully is a killer because some miraculously have escaped the effects of genetics. Nonetheless, I wouldn't trust any of them, regardless of what the owner had to say. What a pity the government didn't ban the importation of them in the first place.

https://www.college.police.uk/support-forces/practices/local-environmental-awareness-dogs

https://randd.defra.gov.uk/ProjectDetails?ProjectID=19861

The issue with a list like this is that some of them penalise good dog owners and well-mannered dogs, and some of them are very open to interpretation, and some look good on the surface, but scratch them and there are problems.

For example:
no dogs off-lead in public unless it's an approved area (e.g., licensed dog park)
I live rurally. I can walk miles and see either nobody, or only people (and dogs) that I know. Why should my dogs be in lead in those circumstances? Free running is key to the well-being of many, many dogs. Why should well-behaved dogs with decent recall be on-lead because a minority of dogs are a problem?
all other dogs to be neutered.
At what age should a dog be neutered? Early neutering can predispose to some medical conditions. I leave my dogs intact until they're four or five, to let them mature mentally as well as physically. I've seen three bitches through quite a lot of seasons, and we've never had a pregnancy.
dogs that bite get risk-assessed by a vet (at owners expense) no risk-assessment or a failed assessment = humanely destroyed
Good luck finding a vet keen to do that - and capable of doing so. Vets are not behavioural specialists. Many dogs with aggression issues can be turned around by competent training.

Idiots will be idiots, but it should be possible to regulate them without buggering it up for well-mannered dogs and sensible owners.

There is a campaign by dickhead owners and breeders of these dogs.
Don't ban me licence me.
Started by someone Reid from America,big pitbull breeder.
Yeah right.
Anything to get round the not being able to breed and make more money ,nothing to do with safety as the owners are largely irresponsible morons.
I think the idea for banning was to protect the public not the morons who own such dogs, it’s largely been effective but sadly these moronic dogs are still attacking and killing other animals.

• how? based on what criteria? in their keeping - where exactly? Police haven't had stray kennels for decades now, council contracted pounds are rammed, and not all have the facilities to take seized dogs anyway. Do you understand how much this would cost the taxpayer, on top of the current astronomical costs for housing dogs whilst they wait for court hearings?
• I would agree with a more cohesive reporting system - currently some hospitals will report any dog related injury as a bite, because that is all their forms allow for. I fell over a dog (and then down the stairs) and my torn ligaments went down as a bite which I said at the time was fucking stupid... but thats the box they had to tick. It would be GREAT if ALL emergency medics could rate bite wounds on the Dunbar Bite Scale (this is what behaviourists use to categorise bites).
• Vets are not behaviourists unless they've completed a Veterinary Behaviour qualification (there are a handful of these in the UK) or are a Clinical Animal Behaviourist, alongside their veterinary qualification. Most vets are not qualified, nor have the facilities, to accurately assess behaviour and to do the job properly you really need the dog housed somewhere suitable, and multiple visits.
• How would this work with the generally non-aggressive but tall breeds - or can we kiss goodbye to Deerhounds, Wolfhounds, Great Danes, Greyhounds, Afghans, who are all significantly taller than XL Bullies, Cane Corsos, etc etc? How would you regulate who can have a working dog? There are many many trainers out there training dog for protection work and bite sports, who have zero security work, military or police affiliations - how are you stopping them, they are a huge part of the problem.
• We have licencing and inspection. It is piss poor and mostly handed over to the RSPCA. Who will pay for this? How will it be non-biased (as if the commercial puppy farmer pays the inspector well thats not going to be a surprise, non-planned, fair assessment is it?!).
• Areas with strict leash laws and dog parks tend to see a dramatic rise in dog aggression as dogs are significantly harder to train, exercise and meet their physical and mental needs. In many places the 'dog parks' are little more than shit filled postage stamps with fencing, where dog aggressive dogs are let run around, dog fights happen multiple times a day and responsible owners avoid them like the plague. For a dog park to be beneficial to dogs welfare it needs to be multiple acres in size, landscaped not barren, and carefully managed and monitored. Who will pay, and where will the land be found?
• I do agree with this one!
• Nope - discriminatory. Very few disabled people can get a dog from a charity because the cost per dog is huge, the wait lists are years long, you will increase the value in people selling trained assistance dogs (a HUGE con market, really bad news) and fewer people will have assistance dos who need them. The EA quite clearly states it is possible to owner train for good reason. I'd propose a much better awareness scheme of what is and is not an assistance dog task, what businesses/venues can expect of an assistance dog and where/when they can ask a dog/handler team to leave.
• These last two are taking away a business owners rights to manage their business the way they want. If you want to shop or eat in a cafe that is dog free, and your local stores/cafes have dogs - tell the owners why you are not spending money there. They let dogs in because thats where the money is coming from, for many, if dogs can't come in, their trade will drop to the point where they are no longer in business (very true in my local, rural area).

I don’t see the point of dog licensing, all that will happen is that the types of people you’re tying to guard against won’t bother to get them and all the responsible people end up forking out more money .

And this hurts you how exactly? You don’t like dogs, fine then ignore them. I don’t like badly behaved screaming kids, drunk knobheads hanging around town or idiots smoking or vaping so you have to walk through crowds of grossness to get where I’m going. Do I get to ban or licence all of those?

Very sensible and reasoned answer.

Some people are bad with their dogs, in the same way that some people supervise their children badly or are generally antisocial, enforcement needs to be proportionate and demonstrably address the problem at hand, most of the people here just don’t like dogs and want them gone from society without considering what that would mean to millions of people, aside from the infringement on personal freedoms dogs are a really important part of the life and support system of a large part of our society and I’m sick of the demonisation.

@hattie43 I disagree. There is a large range between undesirable lawless people who breed dogs for fights and perfect responsible owners. You are right the licence wouldn’t tackle the first category but it would deal with a lot of people who are generally law abiding and would call themselves responsible but their dog is an u trained menace. Applying a “dog tax” would give more money to deal with incidents and it might lead to fewer dogs over all which is now bad thing considering the amount of people who own one inappropriate to their accommodation or lifestyle.

I would be happy to see a licensing system, not specifically to mitigate the issue of dangerous dogs (though that would be a part of the reason) but to control the whole swathe of issues relating to dogs, especially animal welfare, but also things like failing to clear up poo, noise nuisance, etc.

The licence would have to be expensive enough to cover the costs of enforcement. That would make it VERY expensive.

In the short term the system would cause all sorts of problems - and I imagine there would be loads of people that simply didn't buy a licence, resulting in a lot of confiscated dogs unhappily in kennels.

The value of a licensing system (if it worked) would ultimately be that it might massively reduce the number of dogs owned - by requiring some demonstration of competence as well as money and whatever other conditions might be imposed. We've reached a horrible point where dogs are bred and bought and sold just as another part of consumer capitalism. That was already bad enough before Covid, but since Covid it has become insane.

IME there are three groups of people in the dog world.

1. Those who own the status dogs who don’t care about legislation still don’t get their dogs microchip and this is the group where the fatal incidents seem to happen.
2. the clueless did zero research before getting the dog, did zero training, treat the dog like it is a mobile teddy bear. This is the dog that is off lead runs up and bites the on lead dog minding it’s own business. These dogs also often bite vets and groomers.
3. the vast majority of owners who did their research, did the training and have good etiquette with their dog - not allowing their off lead dog to approach an on lead one. Know what their dogs limits are - not liking feet touched etc.

Group 3 will do everything right, group 2 will tick the boxes, do the paperwork, but the dog will still be untrained and incidents will occur. Group 1 will ignore everything and will just move on to another power breed if they can’t get an XL bully, which we are already seeing with Cane Corso and Dogue de Bordeaux.
Covid massively increased the number of people in group 2.