I’d certainly agree with proper licencing for breeders and breeding. And culls of those from unregulated breeding, not properly trained, etc

Especially on council estates and the occupants.

Now… as to how we deal with the dogs rather than the chavs, that is a little more tricky…

1, I’m veggie so your point is moot.

2, Pretty sure you don’t get your meat from the vets unless you eat Findus Lasagna

Are dogs going to live on turnips now?

A small but vital fraction of veterinarians work in meat hygiene. The horse meat scandal was in fact a case of those involvements being fraudulently circumvented.

I think there is genuine public concern about an emerging trend, and so the Government has a duty to react to that – I don’t think an argument that “no action is required” because “just a small percentage” is going to fly with the electorate.

I also think that the way dangerous dogs are managed in the law is going to need to change.  The playbook has been written – if Bully XLs are banned, then the demographic who typically wants to own/trade them will just move onto a different hybrid, and around we will go.

I’m not a dog owner myself, but I think there is rather too much squeamishness about calling a spade a spade here (I’ve checked, and I don’t think that’s racist? that comes from Greek I think).  Personally I’d rather that X of these dogs get neutered (or even destroyed) if it prevents an innocent kid getting attacked in a park and hurt/killed.  I appreciate that everyone is going to have their own number here – mines pretty high.

I’m more in favor of a grading type system whereby dog breeds/hybrids of breeds with a greater tendency towards aggression and capacity for harm are either directly banned (as may be appropriate here) or more closely regulated / assessed to ensure that they are being owned responsibly, with appropriate steps if they aren’t.

Want a labradoodle?  Knock yourself out.  Rottweiler?  Also yes, but you are going to have to jump through a few hoops and demonstrate (on an ongoing basis) that you are a suitable person.  Some sort of weird pit-bull hybrid specifically bred for size and maximum aggressiveness?  No.

My instincts are don’t ban anything. I want to live in a world where kids are brought up by responsible parents to respect things like knives, firearms, alcohol, animals, vehicles, other people, chainsaws, fire, electricity and so on and so forth and are introduced to them and or trained to use them correctly and appropriately.
Sadly I think the odds of this happening are zero.
For the anti banners, what would you have them do immediately? Some kind of licencing system would be very expensive and take forever to roll out and if the firearms licencing system is anything to do by, a bit of a mess. That’s not to say there shouldn’t be one.
The guardian say a dog a day is killed by an XL. That’s completely unacceptable. Obviously people getting killed is completely unacceptable. Not doing anything is not an option.
I’m in favour of a ban.

Guardian readers are coming for your dogs

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/19/could-the-dog-and-cat-days-be-over-soon

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/mass-xl-bully-walk-planned-27752197

PSA

I mean what could possibly go wrong

So guns are against the law as they’re a danger to society due to how people use them?

lots of drugs are against the law because they’re dangerous to individuals and society due to how people use them?

Dogs are dangerous to individuals and on-mass, society but are fine because people who’re owning/training them are suddenly sooo reliable…?

License dogs like guns. You want one, you have to demonstrate that you can keep it safely.  If at any time it’s proven that you can’t, it goes and you have to pay for its retraining/rehoming.

That’s actually the most sensible suggestion yet.

Unfortunately like all licensing systems in this country it’s not going to stop the people that need to be targeted. The same people that will drive a car with no licence or insurance are the same ones that would have a ridiculous dog with no licence.

That’s before you even consider who would administer it and how you would judge suitability? (most dog rescue charities seemingly don’t want to rehome dogs from our experience)

So yeah, nice idea but that’s all it is, wish it wasn’t the case but here we are. Again simple questions, complex answers.

I mean what could possibly go wrong

Sadly they have realised the answer was “quite a lot” and have gone for the boring option of a dogless march.

There was a Big Dog meetup in our local park last week. 🥴

That’s before you even consider who would administer it and how you would judge suitability? (most dog rescue charities seemingly don’t want to rehome dogs from our experience)

I can’t speak for all charities or know your circumstances, but the ones I’ve worked with IME are very picky because there are still far more people wanting dogs than there are dogs in kennels. And the dogs that are in kennels are “problems”. So it’s not a case of turning up and picking a dog and paying the donation like it was 20 years ago. These days’ they’ll have a database of people seeking dogs with their details, requirements, any issues etc. So when a dog come sin that’s only suitable for older kids, no small pets, rural location etc they can offer it to people that meet the exact criteria. It’s tailoring their work around finding the right home for the dog, not the other way around because the ratio of the people database to the dog database was about 100:1.

The dogs that didn’t get matched straight away and stayed in kennels/foster past the initial couple of weeks while they were checked over, neutered, behavior assessments etc had issues. Post lockdown lots of them had been bought/sold three or four times by which point their anxiety and nervousness was turned up to 11.

The criteria for getting a puppy could probably be a bit more relaxed than that as you’re dealing with an unknown (you don’t know if the dog will grow up to hate fireworks so can’t assess if a rural or town location is suitable for example). It’d be better if at least had to do a few days crash course in dog training to get the license though.

So guns are against the law as they’re a danger to society due to how people use them?

Not all guns are illegal, and few people had handguns when they were banned.  Going to be much harder to convince the populace that we should ban all dogs.  Of course everyone has an opinion on everyone else’s mutt, but would be outraged if you tried to limit theirs!

lots of drugs are against the law because they’re dangerous to individuals and society due to how people use them?

but despite being illegal are readily available, fund a criminal underworld and ostracise those who end up using them.  I’m not sure they are a goo argument for banning anything!

Dogs are dangerous to individuals and on-mass, society but are fine because people who’re owning/training them are suddenly sooo reliable…?

I think it would be more accurate to say a tiny number of dogs are a problem.  Far more cars kill people than dogs.

License dogs like guns. You want one, you have to demonstrate that you can keep it safely.  If at any time it’s proven that you can’t, it goes and you have to pay for its retraining/rehoming.

I think the suggestion on the first page that licensing breeders and having full traceability of that would be a far better solution – not need to define the breed then simply need to know who the “parents” were or even the breeder and stop that whole blood line or business.   Massive penalties for noncompliance.

I believe one of the possible options for owners of a new banned breed is to require insurance (as well as muzzle etc).  I wonder why we don’t just require all dogs to be third party insured.  Presumably, your average pet owning tory voter already has pet insurance so probably doesn’t cost them anything.   Nasty breeds would be more expensive to insure, but should be obvious to dog wardens / cops which are the most likely to avoid it.  Obviously those are the sort of people who don’t buy car insurance either but we have fines, disqualifications and impounding of vehicle (and then prison for failing to comply with those) to deal with that and same logic could apply here.    Rather than trying to define specific breeds insurers would be quick to work out a mechanism to identify good/bad breeders and low/high risk blood lines.