You might know that in England and Wales the XL bully is banned but people can keep the dog provided they obtain a licence and are registered and they keep the dog on a lead and in a muzzle when in a public place plus the animal has to be micro-chipped and insured in order for it to be legal.
This new law which came into force today has resulted in some people taking their dogs to veterinarians to be euthanised which attracts a £200 compensation payment by the government, or complying with the new licensing/registration law.
But some XL bully owners have shipped their dogs to Scotland. Scotland is behind the curve. They did not want to introduce the law at the same time as it was introduced into England and Wales and therefore at the moment the XL bully is legal in Scotland.
The current story is about an XL bully attack on a 77-year-old woman. The dog terrified her, savaged her arm and left her in hospital with life-changing injuries.
Her name is Isobel Boyd. She was walking down the street in Tullibody, Scotland when, approaching her, on the pavement, there was a young teenager with an XL bully dog.
She stepped to one side to let the pair through but in an unprovoked attack, the XL bully dived at her left arm, bit her on the arm and wouldn’t let go.
She said:
“It grabbed me by the left arm and swung me around to a wall, which I grabbed with my other hand to keep myself up. I knew if I went down, I wouldn’t get back up because of the arthritis in my knees. I was clinging on and screaming but it just flung me to the ground and into the road. It was horrific. It was just shaking me like a ragdoll. I was absolutely petrified. I thought I wasn’t going to make it, to be honest. It wouldn’t let go and there was blood everywhere.”
She was saved by passers-by, one of whom was a young person with a skateboard. They hit the dog with their skateboard. Another passerby use their lighter to try and singe the dog’s nose to stop it. And another person, a man, kicked the dog.
Together they managed to stop the dog attacking her. She suffered serious injuries including a fractured arm and severed tendons. She also suffered a fractured knee leaving her in a wheelchair. She was in hospital for two weeks approximately and has to go back regularly for her wounds to be cleaned and re-bandaged to avoid infection. She also had a skin graft.
Isobel Boyd’s brother, Steven Hunter, said: “The dog that attacked Isobel was one of the ones that got brought up from England. There’s another two in the village.”
Isobel Boyd blames the Scottish government for being slow to introduce a ban. Scotland is introducing a ban and following the exact law as enacted in England and Wales but, as mentioned, they are behind the curve.
Boyd said: “I blame the Scottish government. They should have been quicker and then this wouldn’t have happened. It makes me angry.”
Ironically, Boyd is a dog lover and doesn’t want to see any harm coming to anyone’s dog. She added that, “I wouldn’t condemn anybody’s pet. It’s the owners, it’s not the animals that are the problem. But people have got to abide by these rules.”
Until 2023, there was an average of only three dog attack fatalities annually but over the past two years there have been 23 and this is been put down to the XL bully, which, incidentally, was bred to be a docile animal according to the founder and creator of this breed.
Boyd is correct. Some owners have turned this dog into a monster by training it to be aggressive and giving it steroids. It’s a kind of status symbol for some people and they want the dog to be aggressive. And these dogs are incredibly strong.
One XL bully owner, Liv Kirby, from Chelsea, London, says that the ban won’t stop attacks taking place. She says that she’s had large dogs all his life and they never been aggressive. It’s all about the training and it breaks her heart to have to put a muzzle on her XL bully.
There is an issue there potentially because I’ve not seen anybody actually ask whether putting a muzzle on a dog that’s not been used to it affects the animal. How does the animal feel about this? Perhaps that’s a pointless question but it may affect the dog’s emotional state negatively.
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