Those who support and promote the banning of Bully XL dogs have expressed their concern that varying degrees of abuse has been levelled at them by those who oppose the ban or who simply face losing much loved family pets who have never shown any aggression whatsoever.

While it is never acceptable to use abuse as a tool, those who promote coercion via draconian laws as a means of controlling the lifestyles of others should not be surprised when heartbreak and desperation drives them to actions that they would not normally contemplate.

It is all very well for Benedict Treolar, co-founder of the Centre for Evidence-Based Regulation of Dangerous Dogs (CEBRDD)to claim that the dogs are not going to be taken and simply need to be muzzled and kept on a lead in public. They also need to be neutered, invasive and now controversial operations that can actually increase aggression by 30%. Can this really be a sensible thing to do to dogs who are accused of being instinctively aggressive? Could it be that it will actually cause the very attacks that the legislation is supposed to prevent?

The dogs need to be registered and insured. On top of that social housing providers are refusing to allow tenants to keep dogs of this kind with owners choosing to become homeless, live in cars and caravans, sooner than give up their dogs. A petition calling for landlords to be prevented from evicting tenants simply for owning bully XLs has already gained 4,295 signatures. How will the homeless satisfy the conditions to obtain an exemption? Should everyone decamp to Scotland and Northern Ireland where the ban will not extend?

Add to all of this the confusion that many feel about whether their dogs will fall within the badly defined guidance that seems to include a wide range of dogs and which leads people to recall that the “pit bull type” definition of the original Dangerous Dogs Act even dragged a pedigree staffie into its net.

For many families struggling to make ends meet these costs and restrictions are the death knell for their dogs, many of whom they have had since they were puppies and who have grown up with their children.

Can it be any wonder that people who own animals that are only guilty of having the wrong body shape are hurt and angry? Especially when they see statisticians promoting such restriction and destruction? When they think of the failures of “modelling” during Covid?

Dog attacks have risen everywhere, not just in the UK, although the circumstances around the rise tend to be different and the measured reaction of different jurisdictions puts the UK to shame. Will any UK government find the courage to bin breed specific legislation and consider real scientific research into the cause of the problems? Or are we too entrenched in the cycle of ban, slaughter, ride out the emotional storms of heartbreak only to discover, yet again, that the solution has failed and we look to the next dog breed to be destroyed?