Dog owners protest UK government's plan to ban XL Bully

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - Hundreds in London Saturday took part in a demonstration to criticize recently announced plans to ban the American XL Bully dog.

XL Bully owners shouted, "Save our bullies," while decrying the government at a gathering at Parliament Square in central London.

"Don't bully our breed", "Blame the owner, not breed", "Don't bully our bullies" were among the signs carried by protesters.

Demonstrators later marched toward the Prime Minister's Office on Downing Street and urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to resign.

Joanne, the owner of an XL Bully dog, told Anadolu that the decision to ban the dog has broken so many hearts of families.

"They could have put regulations in place before just banning this dog," she said.

She acknowledged that any dog can be dangerous but said measures taken against owners if the dogs are in the wrong hands would have been better than banning the entire breed.

"It's been very upsetting and so many people have been in absolute tears and heartache this week," she added.

Sunak announced last week that the American XL Bully dog will be banned in the country by the end of the year after recent dangerous attacks.

Citing one deadly attack, Sunak said: "It’s clear this is not about a handful of badly trained dogs. It’s a pattern of behavior, and it cannot go on."

The plan is to ban the breed under the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act which prohibits or restricts certain types of dogs and codifies the criminal offense of allowing a dog of any breed to be dangerously out of control.

So far, four types of dogs -- pitbull terrier, Japanese tosa, dogo Argentino and Fila Brasileiro -- are banned under the act.