Dogs are one of the most common pets that people tend to own, but the ability to love your dog can get a little hard when the government steps in. Dog owners tend to have a very deep relationship with their pets, with some even considering them as their children. It is a goal for most to provide the best life for their animals that they can, but for XL bully owners in the United Kingdom, this is becoming increasingly difficult.
The U.K. has already banned dogs such as the Pit Bull Terrier, the Japanese Tosa, the Dogo Argentino, and the Fila Brasileirounder the Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991. This law makes it illegal to breed, sell, or own any of the previously listed breeds in the U.K. This law, in turn, makes it legal for the U.K. police to take any dogs of those breeds away from their owners, regardless of if they are well behaved or not. When this law was first passed, it caused a lot of heartbreak within the owners of these breeds, and it is going to happen again for XL bully owners.
Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the U.K., has released to the public that all breeds that fall under the XL Bully descriptor will be banned by the end of this year. This means that the breeding, sale, and ownership of XL bully breeds will be banned by the U.K. government. However, it has been stated that these dogs will not be taken away from their owners as long as they are put through training and are muzzled whenever they are in public.
Banning XL bullies by the end of the year is an extremely short grace period for pet owners that have bullies. With an increase in demand for muzzles and training, trainers and supplies are becoming limited and even unavailable to bully owners. This makes it hard for the owners to abide by the rules set by the U.K. government before the end of the year. On top of it all, with the U.K. government villainizing bullies more than they are naturally, people who do not own bullies will become more scared of the ones already in loving homes. The reasoning that the U.K. has for banning XL bullies is that they are, according to Sunak, “dangerous to our [U.K. citizens] communities.”
After a handful of dog attacks, the U.K. government decided that the best course of action to prevent further attacks was to get rid of the breed entirely. This law is not only the easy way out, but also pushes the stereotype that all bully breeds are bad dogs. Banning an entire dog breed is the simplest way that the U.K. could have gone about resolving this issue, and it appears as though
little effort was made to protect bully owners and their pre-existing dogs.
While it is understandable that the U.K. government wants to protect its people, banning and controlling dogs and their owners is not the way to go about the change. The majority of bullies are not aggressive, but by claiming that they all are, this law harms the species and bully owners as a whole. To most pet owners, dogs are family members, to take them away because of their breed should never be a force carried out by the hands of the government.
