It has to suck being a newborn XL Bully in the UK right now. I mean, what’s the point of even being born if Rishi Sunak has decided to ban the entire breed by the end of the year? Might as well crawl back in your mum’s womb at that point.
This is the issue facing Jamie from North Lanarkshire, Scotland, whose three-year-old XL Bully has just welcomed 18 puppies into the world.
Jamie said it wasn’t his intention to breed his dog, but the pooch ended up mating with his sister’s dog – also an XL bully. He told LBC:
My plan was to neuter her and I actually enquired about it but it was too close to her season. We took a lot of precautions to avoid her having contact with other animals. It was only about the fifth week when we thought it was clear that this happened.
Jamie insists that the puppies weren’t bred for financial gain and that he and his sis really just want to find them a good home with a responsible owner. If that doesn’t happen, Jamie worries that they will end up in rescue centres… or worse.
“It would be absolutely heartbreaking to have to hand these dogs over to rescue centres – because the chance now of them being put to sleep is soul destroying.”
The way it works when the legislation comes in is that it will be illegal for XL Bullies to be sold, abandoned, bred, or even given away for free. If you already own an XL Bully, it’s possible the police will turn up to your home with a warrant to retrieve the dog.
There is some good news for current XL Bully owners though: if a court rules that your dog is not a danger to the public, it could be put on the Index of Exempt Dogs which lasts the duration of the dog’s life. For any dog to be eligible though, they will need to be neutered, microchipped, and kept on a lead and in a muzzle any time they’re out in public.
Your XL Bully will also need to be kept in a secure place that it can’t escape from, but that should be the case anyway. You will also have to take out insurance on your dog injuring other people.
So it sounds like if you’re an XL Bully owner and your dog is truly a good boy/girl, you have nothing to worry about. Let’s hope these 18 puppies all find homes and owners who deserve them and are able to raise them to be loving, murder-free dogs. Chances are they’re descendants of the notorious Killer Kimbo – one of the meanest XL bullies around. So let’s not get our hopes too high.
