15/09/2023
As a canine professional, I’ve been horrified by the increase in attacks in recent years by XL bully’s and other breeds.
I’ve been hesitant to post about this, as I know it’s such a hot topic, but I’m seeing a lot of the usual “it’s not the dog, it’s the owner” being thrown around and I feel like I need to chime in on this.
Training and reinforcement history will not change neurological issues or mitigate all behaviour driven by physical pain.
Far too many people are not responsible enough to be trusted with larger, stronger breeds (of various kinds).
Genetics can, and DO impact behaviour.
We have known this for many years, which is why we have pastoral breeds and guardian breeds and gundog breeds, we have selectively bred dogs to do certain jobs.
Collies will herd instinctively, in some lines, this is much stronger as a trait, some collies are more neurotic, anxious and reactive than others, again, this is down to genetics, mixed with early socialisation and reinforcement history.
Retrievers will retrieve objects and steal things as an outlet for this behaviour if not correctly channeled, you don’t need to train them to do this for this to happen.
XL bully dogs are a cross breed, stemming from breeds bred for herding, hunting or guardian purposes in the 80s, but unscrupulous breeders becoming greedy means they have clearly not been breeding for temperament and good traits.
The difficulty with the XL bully is that it’s not one standard breed, it’s a mix, much like the doodles, of varying percentages, with a mixture of lines and breeds to create a specific look, rather than for temperament.
If the issue was just with bad owners, surely we would be seeing more fatal attacks from bad came corso owners, lab owners and German shepherd owners, right?
They’re all large breeds, can be prone to aggressive behaviour and could cause severe damage if they attack.
The stats don’t seem to represent this to the same degree at the moment.
The issue with banning the breed is that the kinds of “bad owners” everyone is talking about are unlikely to agree or adhere to a licensing scheme, or agree to surrender their dog.
They’re unlikely to care very much about the risk their dog poses until it’s too late, and a ban or licensing probably won’t solve this (how could this possibly be monitored?)
The other issue is that the kinds of people who don’t care about the damage their dogs may pose, if forced to surrender their XL Bully dogs, would simply move onto another large bully type breed, such as the cane corso, or perhaps breeders will make a New Cross breed that looks similar but doesn’t have the same genetic mix as the XL bully.
Again, the issue goes back to bad breeding.
If owners were more careful about the breeders they trust, this could (somewhat) be mitigated, but owners are often fooled by kennel club paperwork and essentially a breeder acting as a snake oil salesman.
I don’t know exactly what the answer is, but a good first step would be to make being on-leash in public mandatory for all dogs if they are not in a fenced-in environment. (Long lines allowed)
There’s no way to oversee that all dogs have good recall in all situations, and dogs can have plenty of freedom on a long line while remaining under control.
Far, far too many people overestimate their dogs ability to recall in parks, around distractions and other dogs, even professionals have been harmed by off-leash dogs storming up to them.
“It’s ok he’s friendly” could be a thing of the past. At least for most.
In addition, I think a licensing/monitoring scheme could be a good solution if it can be monitored properly. Self-reporting will never be the answer in these situations.
I hope more people are willing to look at their dog’s behaviour, not ONLY as a reflection of their training (or lack of), but a mixture of genetics, early life experiences too. Diet also plays a part, as does pain.
If you notice a sudden change in your dog’s behaviour, ESPECIALLY aggression, PLEASE take them to the vet for a check up first. In some cases it could legitimately save a life (or multiple).
At Bully Watch, we began delving into the pedigrees—essentially, the family trees—of dogs from the most well-known Bully XL kennels across the UK. Our investigation steered us down a trail where on…
