Apparently, we can change our minds.

So… Apparently We Can Change Our Minds About XL Bullies Now

Which is nice.

From 1 October 2026, owners in England and Wales who have a Certificate of Exemption for an XL Bully can apply to withdraw it if they no longer believe their dog is actually an XL Bully.

It's entirely up to the owner to decide.

You simply need to look at your dog, compare it with the government's XL Bully conformation standard and decide whether you've got one.

Simple.

Well… sort of.

Because if you decide that your dog isn't an XL Bully and withdraw the certificate, but the dog is subsequently found to be one, you could be committing a criminal offence. Your dog could be seized, and you'd have to go through the courts to keep it.

And once you've withdrawn the certificate, you can't just change your mind and have it reinstated.

So, no pressure then.

How did we get here?

Now, before anyone thinks this is going to be me standing on a soapbox shouting "XL Bullies are lovely and the government hates dogs!", it isn't.

I understand why the government felt it needed to act.

There had been some horrific dog attacks. People had been seriously injured and, tragically, people had died.

Something needed to be done.

But there's a rather important difference between:

"Something needs to be done."

and

"We know exactly what we're doing."

And I'm not entirely convinced those two things got enough time to meet each other.

The XL Bully legislation moved remarkably quickly.

The government introduced the type to the Dangerous Dogs Act and suddenly thousands of dog owners found themselves having to work out whether their dog fitted a government definition of an XL Bully.

Not a registered breed.

Not a dog with a pedigree certificate.

A type.

A collection of physical characteristics.

And if you got the answer wrong, the consequences weren't exactly:

"Oh well, never mind. Better luck next time."

We're talking about a criminal offence.

I got to meet some of them

When the legislation was first introduced, like quite a few other trainers, I found myself offering muzzle-training sessions for next to nothing.

I think my exact pricing was something along the lines of "buy me a pint and a bag of crisps."

It seemed like a small thing I could do to help owners who were suddenly faced with a new set of rules.

And as a result, I got to meet a few XL Bullies.

And do you know what?

They had lovely temperaments.

I'm obviously not going to pretend that my handful of encounters somehow proves anything about an entire population of dogs. It doesn't.

But it did make me think.

Because the dogs I met weren't the monsters that some of the media coverage had led people to imagine.

They were dogs.

Powerful admittedly.

But just dogs.

Dogs with personalities, owners, quirks, worries, enthusiasm and, in some cases, an impressive ability to occupy an entire sofa while somehow believing there is still room for you.

And it left me wondering whether we were focusing on the wrong end of the lead.

There are undoubtedly dangerous dogs.

There are also undoubtedly irresponsible owners.

And I can't help wondering whether some of the dogs involved in the worst incidents would have been dangerous regardless of what shape they were.

If someone is determined to create, encourage or simply tolerate dangerous behaviour in a dog, I'm not convinced changing the shape of the dog would suddenly make them responsible.

I'm pretty sure some of these people could have made a stuffed toy dog look like a public safety issue.

That's obviously not evidence.

It's just something I've thought about a lot since meeting some of these dogs.

The little problem with the numbers

Here's where things get messy.

The government originally estimated there were around 10,000 XL Bully-type dogs in the UK.

The Animal Sentience Committee later reported that there were actually more than 50,000 registered XL Bullies at the time the policy decision was made.

That's not being slightly out with your estimated number of dog treats.

That's being out by roughly five times.

The Committee concluded that this meant the welfare impact of the policy was significantly greater than anticipated, including the effects of seizure, prolonged kennelling and lifelong restrictions.

It also highlighted something else that I think deserves considerably more attention: there simply wasn't a sufficiently robust database of dog bites and attacks to properly understand the problem.

Existing data was incomplete and often lacked important information about the circumstances surrounding incidents.

In other words, we were trying to solve a very serious problem while working with some fairly imperfect information.

But don't worry — we had a definition

And this is probably my favourite part.

Because despite all of that uncertainty, we had a nice handy government definition.

A physical checklist.

Measure this.

Look at that.

Compare the dog's proportions.

Decide whether it meets the standard.

Because obviously anyone who has spent five minutes looking at dogs knows that nature absolutely loves putting animals into convenient little boxes.

Dogs, being the wonderfully cooperative creatures they are, of course never have variation in size, structure, breeding or appearance.

They certainly don't have crosses, mixed ancestry or questionable breeding histories.

No.

Everything is nice and tidy.

Until it isn't.

Now we're going backwards

Which brings us back to the new scheme.

Because the government is now saying that if you have a certificate but no longer believe your dog is an XL Bully, you can withdraw it.

I actually think that's a useful thing to allow.

If a dog was incorrectly classified, there should be some mechanism for correcting that.

But it does create a rather awkward question.

If the definition was clear enough for us to introduce legislation that could result in dogs being seized or euthanised, why are we now asking owners to decide whether the definition was incorrectly applied to their dog?

And if the owner gets it wrong, they're the ones carrying the legal consequences.

Defra's current guidance is very clear: if you're unsure, don't withdraw the certificate.

Which is sensible advice.

But it also rather neatly demonstrates the problem.

We're asking ordinary dog owners to make a decision with potentially enormous consequences while simultaneously telling them:

"If you're not absolutely sure, don't make the decision."

Thanks.

That's reassuring.

The rules have already changed.

The requirements placed on owners have changed.

The government has had to respond to concerns about the welfare consequences.

The number of dogs affected was dramatically higher than originally estimated.

And the government's own response to the Animal Sentience Committee acknowledges that the evidence base was limited and that the actual number of dogs exempted exceeded the original estimates.

There are also further changes coming into force. From 1 November 2026, for example, owners of exempted XL Bullies will have another condition relating to children under 12 being in close contact with the dog in private places.

So here's the question I keep coming back to.

Who's to say the rules won't change again?

I'm not saying they will.

I'm not predicting that they will.

But we've already seen the rules change.

And that matters when you're asking people to make permanent decisions about their dogs.

This isn't about pretending dangerous dogs don't exist

There are dogs that are genuinely dangerous.

There are dogs capable of causing catastrophic injuries.

And owners absolutely have responsibilities.

None of that is controversial to me.

What I question is whether banning a type of dog based largely on appearance is the best way of dealing with that problem.

Especially when the evidence base isn't as comprehensive as we'd ideally want, the definition isn't as straightforward as a breed name on a piece of paper, and the consequences for getting the judgement wrong can be enormous.

The Animal Sentience Committee itself concluded that the lack of adequate data meant policymakers were unable to fully understand the welfare impact of the decision when the XL Bully was added to the Dangerous Dogs Act.

That's not me saying it.

That's the committee whose job includes considering how government decisions take animal welfare into account.

So where does that leave us?

We've gone from:

"This dog is an XL Bully and therefore subject to these rules."

to:

"Actually, if you don't think it is an XL Bully, you can tell us."

But if you tell us and you're wrong, we could take your dog and you'll end up in court.

And if you tell us you're right, there's no guarantee that the legislation won't change again in the future.

It's a rather strange position to put dog owners in.

And perhaps this is the bigger lesson.

When governments make laws affecting animals, particularly laws that can determine whether an animal gets to remain with its family, perhaps we should demand a little more than:

"We've got a problem, we've got a definition, let's crack on."

Because once you've changed someone's life, seized their dog, put an animal into kennels or potentially euthanised it, saying *"Well, we didn't quite anticipate how many there would be"* doesn't really put the toothpaste back in the tube.

And if we're now at the point where the government is giving people a way of saying:

"Actually… I don't think you got my dog right."

Maybe that's something worth listening to.

Not because every XL Bully is harmless.

Not because every government decision is wrong.

And not because dog owners should get to ignore the law whenever they disagree with it.

But because if we're going to make serious laws about serious risks, we should probably make sure the evidence, definitions and consequences are every bit as serious.

Because the dog at the end of the lead doesn't get to vote on any of this.