Not everyone welcomed Rishi Sunak’s announcement last week that he would ban the XL Bully under the Dangerous Dogs Act. This American crossbreed is responsible for nearly half the deaths caused by dogs in the UK between 2021 and 2023 and hit the headlines recently after a video emerged of one attacking an 11-year-old girl, as well as several men, in Birmingham. Yet the Dog Control Coalition said outlawing them wouldn’t stop the attacks.

‘For 32 years, the Dangerous Dogs Act has focused on banning types of dog and yet has coincided with an increase in dog bites, and the recent deaths show this approach isn’t working,’ said a spokeswoman.

That struck me as odd, because while the Act does indeed ban certain breeds, it also created a criminal offence whereby owners can be prosecuted for failing to keep their dogs under proper control. I know this because my wife was cautioned under the Dangerous Dogs Act after our Hungarian Vizsla bit an Ocado delivery man seven years ago.

Leo was always a handful. Keeping a large hunting dog in a terraced house in Acton was a bad idea to begin with, but Leo was high maintenance even by the standards of the breed. He required at least two hours of exercise a day, otherwise he’d treat the house like his personal adventure playground, leaping from one item of furniture to another. No matter how many hours Caroline spent trying to train him, he was convinced that any item of food left unattended for more than ten seconds was fair game, even if it was in the middle of the kitchen table. Letting him off the lead in Acton Park in the summer was a complete no-no because of all the food laid out on picnic blankets, waiting to be hoovered up.

Caroline returned with him from Wormwood Scrubs (the park, not the prison) one afternoon and let him out of the boot. Unfortunately, an Ocado shop was being delivered to our next-door neighbour at that exact moment and Leo leapt over the wall and gave the man a little nip. I’m not downplaying it – it really was a nip – but the man, perhaps sensing an opportunity for compensation, rolled around on the ground, clutching his leg and moaning in pain. He insisted on calling an ambulance as well as the police.

The paramedics took one look at his ‘injury’ and told him a trip to A&E wasn’t necessary, and the police were equally dismissive. At least, they were at first. An officer assured Caroline that the man was overreacting and no offence had been committed, but then returned 15 minutes later, having spoken to his sergeant, and said he’d have to take Leo in ‘for observation’. We assumed he meant for a couple of hours, just to make sure he wasn’t a dangerous dog, but that was the last we saw of him for four months.

This was in the run-up to Christmas and, not surprisingly, our four children were all mad with worry. The police had given us a phone number to call to see when we could come and collect Leo, but it went straight through to a recorded message saying they’d be in touch with us when the time came and not to dial the number again. There were no ‘visiting hours’ – we couldn’t even find out where he was being kennelled.

Eventually, Caroline had to report to a police station in Southall, where she was told there was enough evidence to prosecute her under the Dangerous Dogs Act but that she would be let off with a caution if she admitted the crime, which she duly did. I say ‘let off’, but it was recorded as a first offence and it dawned on us that if Leo bit someone else, Caroline would be a repeat offender and almost certainly get a custodial sentence. Although we were fond of the brute, Caroline didn’t fancy spending six months in Holloway, so we persuaded a Vizsla breeder to take him off our hands.

We thought it would be easier for the children if they didn’t see him again – and we could imagine scenes in which they were clinging on to him, refusing to let go. So we met the breeder at the local police station when Leo was handed back to us and turned him straight over. When we told the kids what we’d done, they were convinced it was a white lie and that Leo had been put down. I got the breeder to send us a video of him gambolling around with some other Vizslas, but they weren’t convinced: ‘How do we know it’s him?’ To this day, they still believe he was destroyed.

So, yes, simply banning the XL Bully may not solve the problem entirely. But the Dangerous Dogs Act also allows the owners to be prosecuted, sometimes for fairly minor offences. We really don’t need an even more draconian law.