SO, IT is hard luck to Slasher, Gnasher, Cruncher, Satin, Rocky, Skinner and the rest of them, as it was announced on Friday that the American XL bully dogs will be banned in England and Wales. But this was not before Ian Price lost his life after being savaged (a word usually used in the metaphorical sense, but tragically always used in the literal sense when it comes to these dogs) by two such dogs in Staffordshire.
The Prime Minister commissioned all the people who need to be commissioned to introduce such a ban but not before stating the obvious in that the XL Bully is a ‘danger to our communities’ and has been ‘weaponised’ by some irresponsible owners. We at TCW have slightly stronger words for the owners of these menacing attack dogs, namely self-obsessed, selfish people who buy them and use them as a weapon. We await a ban on the owners also.
Unfortunately, the ban will come too late for Ian Price, 52, who was attacked in the village of Stonnall at about 3pm on Thursday. Two suspected XL bully dogs, I kid you not, ‘leapt from a nearby window and began prowling’ in Mr Price’s mother’s garden. Mr Price understandably went to the garden and the dogs attacked him. He died in the air ambulance.
So, you are not even safe in your home and garden from these creatures. Outrage, absolute outrage, doesn’t come close to covering this.
The fatal attack on Mr Price came only hours after a ten-year-old boy was mauled while he had the temerity to play football outside his house in Walsall, West Midlands. I mean, just how very dare he? Doesn’t he know there are dogs out there which are entitled to roam the street, or indeed leap out of windows and attack whoever they fancy? Surveillance footage showed the dog pouncing on Mohammed Sami Raza. He was taken to hospital with serious injuries to his arm, leg and neck.
Zoe Williams at the Guardian can dry her eyes though, if the thought of having fewer dangerous dogs on the street makes her heart sad.
In ‘exceptional cases’, banned dogs that are not deemed dangerous will be neutered, microchipped and forced to wear a muzzle and be on leads in public at all times. So that is a relief for the poor, fluffy, lovable XL bully dogs and their so-called ‘responsible owners’. Why you would even bother with an exception for these so obviously menacing and dangerous animals is beyond me, but then perhaps that makes we an anti-dog extremist.
I don’t know what it is about these menacing dogs that winds me up so much that this is the third article I’ve written on them in less than a week, but they really do annoy me. Perhaps it is all the dead kids that makes me angry. Perhaps it is the fact that most of these dogs are owned because of the threat and danger they pose. I get annoyed because we as a society put up with it, we tolerate the owners and their brazen selfishness and unreasonable and outrageous demands that we must share public space with these monsters. Finally, someone has called time on this ridiculous state of affairs.
