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Marie Hay had just arrived at the wide-open expanse of Redcar Beach on Teesside when two out-of-control XL bullies mauled her beloved husky Naevia. The bullies ripped open Naevia’s chest and injured Hay’s older daughter, as well as three other people who rushed to help.
“I was absolutely terrified,” she said. “I was just screaming at people to get my little girl, who was only five at the time, off the beach. Everybody was terrified.”
It has been a year since new legal restrictions came into force on American XL bully dogs, and it became a criminal offence in England and Wales to own one without a certificate of exemption on 1 February. The dogs, which are compact and muscular, with a higher-than-average bite force, are related to the American pit bull terrier. Owners must register and neuter them, and keep them muzzled and on a lead in public places. It is illegal to breed, rehome, gift, or sell them. Scotland brought in a similar ban in July.
More than 55,000 XL bullies have now been registered by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), with bully ownership concentrated in deprived parts of Liverpool and Birmingham. Dogs are classified as XL bullies by appearance and the government’s definition.
The attack on Hay’s dog took place in 2023, before the restrictions, and she campaigned for a crackdown on XL bullies after the incident. “I back the ban 100%. It’s definitely made a difference to public attacks,” she said.
In the first year of the ban, there have been nine reported fatal dog attacks in England and Wales. Five of these incidents have involved XL bullies. All the attacks have been in people’s homes, where registered dogs do not have to be muzzled or on a lead.
In 2023, at least four people were fatally wounded by XL bullies in public places. These deaths included Ian Price, who was mauled by two escaped XL bullies outside a house in Staffordshire, in September 2023, and Ian Langley who was attacked while walking his dog in Sunderland in October 2023.
“The ban has made [people] safer in public places,” says Benedict Treloar, one of the founders of the Campaign for Evidence-Based Regulation of Dangerous Dogs.
A rise in deadly attacks by the dogs prompted Rishi Sunak’s government to add them to the list of breeds prohibited under the Dangerous Dogs Act in 2023. There were 23 fatal dog attacks between 2021 and February 2024 – up from a typical 3 deaths a year.
Last month, a 10-year-old girl was killed by an XL bully in her home in North Yorkshire. In May, a 50-year-old woman was fatally wounded by two XL bully dogs in her home in London.
Hay would like the Labour government, which supported the ban on bullies while in opposition, to go further. “The ban doesn’t protect children in homes where the parents keep these dogs as pets. Children are getting bitten or killed.”
Treloar said: “The restrictions on owning and breeding the most dangerous breeds will ultimately cause them to fall back as a proportion of the dog population. We’ve seen a massive reduction in dogs that look like bullies being sold [since the ban came in].”
However, a coalition of some of the country’s best-known animal welfare charities believes XL bullies – like other banned breeds – have been unfairly demonised. “Whether or not a dog will learn to use aggression will be dependent upon how they were bred, how they were reared, and what they’ve been exposed to whilst they’ve been growing up,” said Samantha Gaines, dog welfare expert for the RSPCA, which heads up the coalition.
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The coalition wants the police to focus their limited resources on criminal backyard breeders, who are rearing unsocialised and aggressive dogs for profit. It is also calling for all breeders and dogs to be licensed. “The RSPCA doesn’t want to see anyone else getting killed by dogs but we have to tackle the root causes of aggressive behaviour,” Gaines said.
The ban has led to an increase in maltreatment incidents, according to the RSPCA. It has seen reports of abandoned XL bullies increase by 514%, with 129 dogs left unattended in the first six months of 2024, compared with 21 dogs left unattended in 2023. The charity has also seen cases of neglect rise.
The police have also voiced concerns about the resources involved in enforcing the ban as they have to hold suspected illegal dogs in kennels for months on end while their appearance is assessed. Police forces in England and Wales seized 1,991 suspected banned dogs in the first eight months of 2024, compared with 283 in the whole of 2023, and 818 dogs were destroyed, more than double the number in 2023.
Chief Constable Mark Hobrough, the National Police Chief Council’s lead for dangerous dogs, told the BBC this month that the ban had put significant pressure on police forces and added an “incredible” amount of extra costs.
Two weeks ago, XL bully owners failed in their bid to overturn the ban in the high court. Lawyers for a campaign group, Don’t Ban Me License Me, argued the ban was unlawful as it was based on “unreliable” material, and lacked a “proper” analysis. However, the judge ruled there was “sufficient evidence of an alarmingly high level of fatal attacks” by XL bully-type dogs.
Sophie Coulthard, who brought the case and owns a registered XL bully, said most of the owners in her group are women aged 20 to 40. She accepts that large dogs can do more damage but says their appearance does not determine their aggression.
Coulthard claims bans have not reduced dog attacks. “Any fatality from a dog incident is absolutely tragic,” she said. “But we’ve had the Dangerous Dogs Act in place for 30 years, and it has done nothing to reduce dog attacks because the government are not looking at the real issues.”
The number of dogs in the UK rose during the pandemic. There are about 11 million dogs in the UK, a 41% increase on the figure from a decade earlier. NHS England figures show the number of dog-related injuries has increased by 47% between 2012 and 2023.
Victims like Hay are not persuaded. She argues some breeds are more dangerous than others no matter how they are treated or trained. “Huskies are bred to pull on a lead. Pointers are bred to point. Retrievers are bred to retrieve. XL bullies are bred for fighting in a pit. It does matter how you bring them up … you can’t nurture that behaviour out of a dog.”
A Defra spokesperson said: “The ban on XL bullies is an important measure to protect public safety, and we expect all XL bully owners to comply with the strict conditions.
“We continue to work with the police, local authorities and animal welfare groups to prevent dog attacks by encouraging responsible dog ownership across all breeds of dog, addressing dog control issues before they escalate and using the full force of the law where needed.”
