Just after the deadline of registering an XL Bully, a breakfast tv program had an invited dog expert guest who said around 30,000 XL Bullies had been registered, and estimated 100,000 XL Bullies were in the country before the ban.
If thats accurate, its an estimated 70,000 dogs in England and Wales were either being hiden away from the rest of the world, being euthanized, or abanded, or were flooding other parts of the UK where the ban had a delayed start.
Bullies were added to the list of now 5 breeds, mostly due to enough reports in national papers about people getting hurt or terrified, and quite rightly so.
But how many reports where there ?
20 ? or lets say 50 for arguments sake. Because of those 50 is it fair we seriously restrict more than 100,000 dogs and their owners, who are vastly inocent ?
I say more than because those figures are only of the dogs known to be an XL Bully before the newest law arived.
Add to that number any dog of any breed that has similar dimensions to a bully.
Then add to that the other 4 banned breeds, and add to that any dog with similar dimensions to them.
So the number of dogs and owners directly effected is likely to be much higher.
Literally a golden retriever can, and has been, in court acused of being a banned dog, because of a percentage of its dimensions were similar to a bully.
And heres another ironic scenario, a lady customer mentioned she had registered her dog on the banned list.
She said her dog was a Staffordshire cross.
It wasn’t mentioned the dog having similar dimensions, the lady was only being on the safe side, as she put it.
I sympathise with her thinking, but the lady may have done the oposite, as any dog classed as dangerous that ever gets out accidentally whithout wearing a muzzle or on the lead is at risk of being seized and destroyed.
For anyone who isnt sure if their dog would be a bully “type”, there should be an option of asking to see, for peace of mind. But as I understand it only a police assesser can do that, and they will only do after an incident has already happened, or you voluntarily register your dog without knowing for sure.
Please dont think im coming from a view that cares more about dogs than the people getting hurt, thats not true.
All dogs learn from their owners which behaviour is acceptable from them, im just a believer in punishing iresponsible owners instead, it would be far more effective in combating people getting hurt, which is meant to be the goal.
For my alternative suggestion to work, it would need to be in 3 parts, 3 areas of laws changed, but would be thoroughly more effective, and far more fair.
1) Regarding our Databases.
2) 3rd party Insurance.
3) Criminal penalties to iresponsible owners
A few months ago a customer mentioned a friends dog was killed by an XL Bully, the police were involved, but the owner said he’d sold the dog shortly before, so nothing to do with him, even though he was the registered owner at the database, and the Police were powerless.
Not long after that, I used some of our causes money to pay for a half hour Q&A phone session with a specialist dog solicitor. I brought up this point with a handful of other questions.
If you register yourself as owner of your car at DVLA, and sell the car, but didnt inform the change of ownership, and the new driver gets a speeding or parking ticket etc, the previous owner is liable for the offense, or at very least responsible to demonstrate how it cant possibly be them as liable.
And thats how it is at the land registry with your property or land.
So I asked isnt that the point of a dogs microchip also ?
His simple answer was no, it doesn’t work like that with your dog, who ever is the registered owner may not prove diffinative ownership or responsibility.
Which begs the question what is the point of it then ?
So 1stly that needs to be changed.
Another point that seems to make a mockery with our databases is, theres something like 20 different bases around the country, which means we have about 2 and a half counties worth of dogs to be registered at each of them, as an average.
As i understand it, they are all seperate individual private companies, and that means they dont have to talk to each other or share infomation.
A dog napper can take a dog from one area, take it to another area, and register themselves as the new owner at a database that has no knowledge of the theft, even if the true owner has informed their own registered database the dog was stollen.
So, if no one could argue who the owner is, and whos liable, and there’s a centralised government database office, the law should be the owner is appropriately punished for what ever their dog does.
If a dog causes a person actual harm, the owner should be charged with an appropriate comparable offence of assault.
With driving, if a person is injured due to your driving, it can be looked at to see if any charges should be brought for dangerous driving, not paying due care and attention, etc
Then people would care more which dog they chose, if their fences were adequate, if they felt safe to let their dog off the lead, etc.
Next, Insurance, we all must have vehicle insurance, I would have voted for everyone needing a 3rd party dog insurance, and being an offense if you didnt.
And if you have more accidents you have the premiums get higher.
I would have accepted for some breeds being on a “higher risk list”, and if you choose those breeds you accept your premiums are higher. Just as if a driver wants a higher risk car, they expect to pay more.
Accidents sometimes happen, sometimes dogs get hurt by other dogs, if that happens why shouldn’t you be responsible for the other dogs vets bills if your dog has hurt another dog by law ?
And why isn’t a dog on dog attack in the dangerous dogs act anyway ?
(quite rightly an assist dog is protected by the act, but all dogs should be)
Did you know ? If your dog is badly attacked by another dog, it is meant to be an offense, and the usual procedure is the owner of the aggressor dog is offered to enter into a community order, its a promise to always keep your dog on a lead and muzzled thereafter, but the trouble is breaking that promise isn’t a punishable offense !
The insurance would be for any damage your own dog causes, to people or to other dogs, or whatever. If your dog causes another dog physical injury there shoud be an exchange of insurance details by law.
This may sound like escalating costs of ownership of a dog, but a few months ago I called the Dogs Trust, they told me back then for £25 a year for any dog including a banned breed, you can have 3rd party insurance from them for any damage your dog does.
A marvellous deal, so it probably wouldnt be as bad as you think. Especially if everyone did it.
In the UK we are meant to have one of the fairest legal systems in the world, with laws related to people, yet we seem incapable in my opinion of making any just dog laws.
I wrote to a local MP with most of the above points, and kindly I recieved a short reply, simply saying the vast majority of everyone I speak to supports the new laws.
Which with all due respect, as the vast majority of everyone I speak to criticise it,
made me wonder if the government were coming from the angle of if we were going to make new laws to combat burglars, why would we ask the burgaling community ?
As the law clearly vilifies the dog community on the whole, which again isnt fair, as the cause of people getting hurt is more due to ineffective or non existent laws in place previously, people didnt bother caring because they knew it didnt really matter in law, thats unfortunately human nature.
Im baffled to be honest when they say they consulted dog experts before making the new laws, as to who they actually spoke to.
In my opinion the new dog laws fail us badly, and its irritating trying to find the sense or logic in them.
But sadly they are what they are, and the chances of getting them changed into something more effective and just are probably slim to none.
* an update to this article 16th June 2024
This morning their was a clip on the tv news, about an XL Bully whos owner unfortunately had to go away in custody, leaving his dog unattended in his back garden alone.
Neighbours informed the RSPCA, who in the interest of the dog, ceased him and took him into their care.
But because of the new law, the RSPCA are not allowed to change the legal ownership of a banned dog, which they could have done previously, and reportedly had no choice but to destroy him.
