Panorama - is the XL Bully Ban working

[SaltandPepper22]

Discussion thread.

Personally I can’t understand why they weren’t all just rounded up and destroyed - all of the exemption nonsense just muddied the water.

I do also agree though that there is a problem of ownership; no one should be allowed to have these dogs but there needs to be tighter controls on dog ownership in general.

I would like to see:

• A full ban of any bully type breed
• A maximum weight restriction for any domestic dog
• Restrictions on which dogs can be domestic pets and which are for work only e.g., Rottweiler only for police dog handlers
• Restrictions on size of dog you can own based on the size of your property
• A mandatory training course for new dog owners
• A return to licensing with a points based system for infringements

And obviously, the funding to make sure the above happens! We are apparently currently spending millions rounding up and housing all these XL Bullies, we have the money.

Agreed. I saw one of them in the flesh once. They are absolutely enormous, even bigger than I'd realised. They really should all be destroyed.

Context.

This would be pretty impossible to implement though right? Maximum weight? You dont know for sure what the adult dog will end up weighing when you get them as a puppy.
Restrictions based on size of property? What happens if you move house?

I do agree that some kind of licencing/course for new owners makes sense. As well as having certain breeds as working dogs only. Thats better for the dog too, surely. I imagine there are a lot of bored German Shepherds living a domestic life that would be much happier in the police.

They talk about it in the panorama show - £25million in the first year of the ban

I suppose they would have to rehome the dog, or not move.

I think about these large dogs living in small flats - it’s no wonder they attack (such as in Bristol last year) when they have no room to release energy.

I agree with most of your ideas but:

1. What happens to retired police dogs? Under your rules they’d need to be put down, which seems unnecessarily harsh.

2. I strongly disagree with the property size point. Big dogs are fine in small properties if they get enough exercise. And if people are forced to give up pets when downsizing (even presumably short term renting between selling and buying), there’ll be more dogs in shelters and fewer people downsizing homes, both of which are already problematic.

But yes, XL bullies should all be put down.

My Rottweilers are far happier lounging around on my sofa than being in the police chasing down bad guys!!!

Those rules are a bit draconian. How many rottweilers and German Shepherds do the police need? Many of them make excellent companions/family dogs. As for size of dog/house, who would decide on the ratio? One bedroom=chihuahua, two bedrooms=spaniel etc?
All bull breeds banned? Staffordshire Bull Terriers are brilliant family dogs.

I guess it should be similar to if you have other animals, if you had chickens you would need suitable outside space to house them, if you had a horse you would need a stable either in your own property or elsewhere. If your circumstances change and you can no longer afford the living conditions suitable for a pet then you need to give up the pet unfortunately. People need to consider these things more carefully before committing to a pet.

A friend has two huskies in a very small house. They get three hours exercise a day, minimum.

Another friend has a huge greyhound in an apartment. It’s very lazy! Has a short walk then a sprint in a dog field every day and it just wants to laze about the rest of the time.

They’re far better looked after than the friend with an enormous house and a Dalmatian which has plenty of space but is never made to run, so is very unruly.

Staffordshire Bull Terriers accounted for a quarter of dog attacks in 2023
www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/disclosure-2023/may-2023/data-offences-under-dangerous-dogs-act/

You lost me at your first paragraph.

It isn’t that similar though.

Horses are routinely stabled away from the owners home. That isn’t an option with dogs, other than a couple of weeks in kennels.

Chickens don’t bond to their owners in the same way. It would be quite acceptable to slaughter and eat your chickens, then start with a new flock the next spring. That’s not how dog ownership usually works in the UK!

The mutant dog lives in a block of flats opposite us with three boisterous kids,when it's walked it's not muzzled and takes the owner or teen girl on her phone for a walk.
This dog is huge if it flipped they couldn't control it.
Accident waiting to happen

It all depends on the type of dog though. Something like a St Bernard or even English Mastiff (which is a certain visual type) are very lazy, mellow dogs and probably only dangerous in a flat if you trip over them!
A big dog like a Kangol or Belgian Malinois would be a disaster, esp witht he wrong owner. Unfortunately alot of people still buy dogs without doing their research and without training them properly.

I dont agree with blanket bans on general principle because it doesnt really address the owner issue (Cane Corsos seemed to become more popular here after the ban which are just a sideways step from XL bullies).
However I think sadly the XL bullies in this country have some really bad breeding in their background causing them to be a real liability. We are essentially 'taking them out of production' because they have a potentially fatal design flaw.

I’m not sure but there are quite a few other laws around keeping chickens, they have to be registered and some properties have bylaws that prohibit keeping chickens.

Saw one yesterday, they frighten me. They should all be destroyed.

Sounds about right! There was a woman near me a couple of years ago I have never forgotten lost control of two bully type dogs and they were running up and down the street barking and snarling like anything. Shouts to DH to help her round them up…err, no thanks he’d like to keep all his fingers! Unbelievably dangerous, she is lucky they didn’t knock anyone over.

I always cross over the road from them, I don’t care if the owner is offended. I am offended by their disregard for their own and others’ safety owning a monster for a pet

The programme was quite frightening -- the number of attacks that are bad but not bad enough to get on the news was shocking.

It was also shocking to see how many of these dogs are in kennels at any one time. It must be very distressing for them. From the point of view of animal welfare, it would be better to destroy them immediately upon collection.

I found it a bit annoying that the programme focussed so sympathetically on the plight of dogs that haven't shown signs of aggression but are just on the very threshold of qualifying as an XL bully 'type'.

I know the criteria are in some sense pretty arbitrary, but we have to start somewhere. If only the ban on 'types' was clearly recognised just as a partial, short-term mitigation of the situation I would be fully behind it, even though it pulls in some dogs that will never cause harm.

It may not be very fair on the dogs, but the unfairness was generated by the decision to breed them in the first place, when they are so clearly unsuited to human society. Euthanising them is just the foreseeable outcome of that wrongdoing.
We need to do much more, though. The hyper-commercialisation of dog breeding and dog ownership over the last several years has created so many problems.

Agree with your overall stance and sure the details can be sorted to account for ex-police dogs and such which are really not the problem and can be dealt with separately. And if managing all this is costing so much, then whack up the fines or even tax owners/charge for checks/licences or whatever. Basically get the people who are the problem to pay for the problem they are creating. There's way too many huge beasts around now that the owners out walking them clearly can't control and it's not an acceptable risk.

Yes agree totally. I’m sure there could be rules around retired police dogs etc. They usually live with the dog handler anyway so this would not be a huge obstacle to overcome.