In the news

Thank god for that. Nothing worse than poor people having things.

Neither do I; but I am baffled that it is tolerated so cheerfully.

Pink bags of excrement draped in bushes at the exit back to civilisation are the proverbial cherries.

Back in the day a mate was in London Fields and someone had brought their house rabbit with them to sunbathe and read.

Poor thing didn't last long.

The part I don't know is why people feel they need to defend an obviously problematic dog breed against all available evidence.

Same. It's such a weird flex.

Also specific breeds exist because they have been bread. It's an active choice. Just stop, right?

Don't start me on fuckin' dog owners. My daughter is now terrified of dogs after being chased in the park a couple of times by dogs whose dickhead owners just stood around ineffectually, shouting "It's fiiiiine, he's just being friendlyyyyy, he doesn't biiiiite". Control your fucking animal, dipshit.

I have a scar where a Boarder Collie bit my face when I was a kid, such a shit dog to get savaged by.

I got chased on my morning run today by a collie. Just the playful chasing thankfully, bit jumpy. The owner didn't even move, just kept shouting "come back!" (At the dog I assume).

Ended up just giving it a stroke and it lay down and rolled a bit. The owner still hadnt moved when I ran off with the dog still on the ground, still shouting.

Don't blame the dog not rushing back to her.

Remember the commercial dog walker in Surrey who was killed by a dog or dogs? Turned out the dog mainly responsible was her own pet dog.
And do you want a million guesses what the breed was?

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/natasha-johnston-surrey-dogwalker-american-bully-xl-london-b1082064.html

There's a wildlife pond near us with a fence around it to keep the dogs out.

Apparently some fucker keeps pulling the fence down after multiple reinstatements, because their dog likes to swim in there.

Is the next culture war topic dog owners vs. people who like to go for walks in parks and not get slobbered on?

I would propose a Dog Liscence for all dogs above 30kg or of a type bred for fighting

This is the only way it'll work.

I know the easy thing to say is that we ban XL Bullys - and I've had a few run ins with them myself, and they are terrifying, and I say that as someone with a soft spot for Staffs and Pitbulls and the like - but it's not a proper solution.

The reason we have XL Bullys now is because we banned pitbulls back in the days, so breeders were obliged to come up with some other huge dog for pricks to look tough with. And the XL bully they came up with is twice the size of any pitbull.

Breed Specific Legislation doesn't work, and in this case it actually made things worse. Banning breeds is like pushing down bubbles on wallpaper. Another breed will just pop up and it may very well be worse again.

Licences based on size. Mandatory training for those with licences. Those without licences have the dogs taken off them and trained by professionals. Mandatory police powers to seize unlicensed dogs. Huge fines for those without. It's the only thing that will work consistently.

Can we set the license fee high enough to pay for the extra policing that will be needed?

All dogs should have to wear high vis, helmets and have number plates

The problem with the 'licensing' and 'better, more responsible breeding' arguments is that they need everything to be different.

Banning breeds on the other hand is comparatively simple. If you know why you banned a breed in the first place, I'm not sure why we've found it so hard to incrementally ban something that has all the characteristics of the banned breed but at twice the fucking size.

It's not like it popped up ten minutes after Pitbulls were banned, either, is it? As a game of whack-a-mole, it should be fairly slow pace.

Makes sense to me but can we have some more dodgy links and Quint-esque stories of how they survived 2 days in the Pacific surrounded by bull breeds.

it's a stretch to use the lack of good studies as evidence that actually all dog breeds are equal.

Again, she doesn't say that, she says dog bites and aggression are similar between breeds, but XL bullys and certain other breeds are way more dangerous. If the evidence for that is poor then fair enough.

Maybe I don't see her agenda, but I read her as saying more needs to be done than just ban the latest dangerous breed. I don't see her defending XL Bullys in particular anywhere.

banned bread list

dorset knobs*
plastic sliced white

*not technically a bread but looks like a small roll but is a massive disappointment

Hah! Corrected :)

What’s wrong with plastic sliced white you fucking pretentious prick?

In that article you linked

"But Carrie Westgarth, a professor in human animal interactions at the University of Liverpool explains that there is no hard evidence to prove some breeds are naturally more aggressive than others" and in the context of the recent calls to ban XL Bullys, it's defending the breed by claiming it's not a problem.

I think this is what is supposed to happen with Driving Tests, MoTs etc.

In that article you linked

"But Carrie Westgarth, a professor in human animal interactions at the University of Liverpool explains that there is no hard evidence to prove some breeds are naturally more aggressive than others" and in the context of the recent calls to ban XL Bullys, it's defending the breed by claiming it's not a problem.

Yeah. The British people have had enough of experts.

The owner of the dog that attacked mine told the Police it was a Staffie Mongrel cross not a breed, so banning breeds won’t work.
Someone will produce a Great Dane Staffie cross, treat it horribly and it wouldn’t be a banned breed.

If you the read my previous comment you'll see I've looked in to the research she cites and it either contradicts what she's saying or doesn't say anything itself. So no, it's just critical thinking, try it.

The owner of the dog that attacked mine told the Police it was a Staffie Mongrel cross not a breed, so banning breeds won’t work

You see it with shelters in the US all the time, they list dogs as Lab crosses and the like when they're just pure pitbulls because most home insurance companies don't allow them. It needs proper DNA testing not the current BSL style of looking at head size/shape.

I don't see how that's a defence of XL Bullys. I get that appeals to nuance are a way to downplay a particular issue, but I don't happen to see it in this case.