Are XL bullies fighting dogs, and should there be an amnesty period for the bully ban? What top experts told MPs

Top experts say the XL bully ban will have huge impacts on people from border staff to rescue workers - and that there is still a dearth of clear information on how the soon-to-be banned breed can be accurately identified.

Last month, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced American XL bullies - a fairly new dog breed derived, in part, from pit bulls - would be banned by the end of the year. It came on the back of two serious attacks involving the breed, one where a young Birmingham girl and two men who tried to help her were bitten - and the death of Staffordshire man Ian Price, who died of his injuries after trying to defend his elderly mother from two loose XL bullies.

On Wednesday (18 October), MPs on the government's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee heard from industry experts as to how a ban could work, and what impacts it would have. They included RSPCA dog expert Dr Samantha Gaines, vet and animal welfare advisor David Martin, dog attack injury lawyer James McNally, and Royal Holloway University of London law lecturer Dr Lawrence Newport.

Here's everything you need to know about what they said:

Are XL bullies a fighting breed?

One of the key issues raised by MPs was whether XL bullies could be classified a dog fighting breed, which is able to be banned under the current legislation. Mr Martin said that in his experience as an expert witness, already-banned pit bulls were still predominantly the breed of choice for illegal dog fighting.

"The XLs, in my experience, are being kept for a different purpose in the [criminal] community - as status dogs," he said. “As a protection dog, as a 'you don’t want to mess with me' because I’ve got this lump at the end of a lead.”

He said some likely believed police would be less likely to bother them with a large, dangerous looking dog than if they had a weapon. But Mr Martin said the breed had since become "fashionable" with other owners.

Dr Newport, however, argued that the XL bully was bred from dogs from well-known fighting lines, like Killer Kimbo. From following American sources, when the the breed first started to be developed over the past few decades, he said even a well-known US bully breeder acknowledged only 1% of breeders cared about temperament - and most were breeding for larger sizes and "exotic-shaped heads”.

There was also a case to be made for behavioural tendencies being bred into dogs, he said, especially if they came from fighting stock, as opposed to just saying that big dogs had the potential to cause more damage if they bit someone - with other large breeds like Great Danes not involved in any fatal UK attacks he could find.

What would a ban mean for the people and dogs involved?

On what impacts a ban could have on the wellbeing of both people and the animals involved, Martin said his vet surgery was already seeing owners of perfectly healthy XL bullies - with no history of aggression - bringing them in to be euthanised. Reasons given included that their housing could be at risk or they would not be able to manage the new restrictions due to their working situation, he said.

This could end up posing a big problem, because a recent survey of new vet graduates, 94% would refuse to euthanise a healthy dog with no history of behavioural issues, Mr Martin continued. Dr Gaines said there would also be a huge impact on people and animals in the rescue sector.

The RSPCA already had about 110 dogs in its shelters which may be found to meet the breed standard and would have to be put down, she said. For staff and volunteers who had worked with and bonded with those animals, this would be a "traumatic" experience, she continued, and the ban would further stretch their resources - even though rescue centres were already operating at 130% capacity.

Banning them at the border would also pose issues for UK border staff, Mr Martin said. It would take a specially trained staff member up to half an hour to properly assess whether a dog suspected of being an XL bully matched the breed description, he said, "and you'll also have to have somewhere secure you can get that dog out of its transport box and assess it".

Do we know enough about XL bullies and dog attacks to effectively ban them?

The experts agreed there needed to be more reliable data about dog attacks in the UK - possibly by some kind of impartial body - as well as a crystal clear definition of what an XL bully actually was. Mandatory reporting of dog bites and breeds from sources like hospitals would also be useful, with some experts saying they had heard anecdotal reports of injured XL bully owners not reporting their bites for fear of worsening the stigma around the breed.

While Dr Gaines said the RSPCA would at least like to see "a centralised database where all dog bites are reported and recorded”, she argued that accurate breed identification was "notoriously difficult" - and some incidents reported as XL bully attacks may have been carried out by a completely different breed.

Dr Newport said that even DNA testing was flawed. “The problem with DNA testing is that many of these bully XLs [will show up as] pit bulls," he said. Vet Martin added that DNA typing was totally unreliable, and should not be used even for civil litigation. “That science just is not there.”

Lawyer James McNally added that his practice saw many serious attacks not carried out by XL bullies - with one of the most horrific being a pensioner who had her lower jaw nearly torn off by a staffy - and legislation focusing on a single breed may miss out other dangerous dogs.

Should there be an amnesty period for XL bully owners?

The experts were also asked for recommendations as to how an amnesty period could work for people who currently own XL bullies. Dr Newport said an amnesty period would “bake in” a stretch of time where the UK would keep seeing serious injuries and deaths.

The UK’s per capita dog attack fatality rate was half that of the US, where breeds like pit bulls were not banned, he said, despite being more densely populated. “We do not have high numbers of pit bulls in this country, and we do not have the fatalities as a result.

“[But] The first time we bring a pit bull-type back into Britain - it took 30 years to develop a pit bull-type - we see it in the fatality figures immediately. We have the highest spike in fatalities on record,” he continued.

“It’s right to have an administrative period, but there’s a cost to that period - and that cost is lives.”