American XL bullies are different to pit bulls in one respect – they’re a product of social media

In the world of American XL bully influencers, pregnancy announcements do not aim for subtlety.

On Instagram accounts with handles along the line of @bigsexybullies or @trophy_bullies, the promise of new life is treated as though it were the latest cinematic release from the Marvel franchise. The happy parents-to-be are shown in the foreground of Hollywood-style billboards, with muscles ripped and glowering expressions, flanked by the stars of their “bloodline” – big beasts with tough guy names like Capone’s Spirit, Slayer or The Mexican for the males; Harley Quinn or Moschino for the bitches.

The resulting pups will be described as “goofy” and “affectionate, big loving babies” but also – confusingly – praised for their chest spread, their size, their capacity to “do damage”. “All our xl bullys are big boned and muscular dogs and all look impressive,” goes one ad for the dogs for sale in Ireland.

I’m sure there are some dearly loved pets and cuddly couch potatoes among them, but these dogs are better understood as snarling 65kg status symbols, as effective a flex as a custom-made Bugatti.

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American XL bullies are different to pit bulls in one respect – they’re a product of social media

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In the UK, as concern has mounted about the growing number of attacks by American XL bullies, it became illegal last February to breed, sell, advertise, exchange, gift, rehome, abandon or allow them to stray. Existing dogs must be neutered and kept on a lead and muzzled in public. They are not banned in Ireland.

[ Should XL bullies and other dangerous dogs be banned? ]

Now, following the killing of Nicole Morey, who was mauled by one of her own dogs at her home in Limerick, there are renewed calls for a full ban here too. The unspeakably horrible manner of her death – in her home, in the jaws of a dog she loved, on the night she had been out celebrating her 23rd birthday – does not bear contemplation. Poignantly, she had asked for advice in one chat group about how to get the lead and collar on her XL bully for walks because it got “so excited”.

Minister for Rural and Community Development Heather Humphreys said this week she had requested a stakeholder group led by former deputy Garda commissioner John Twomey, which is looking at the control of dogs, to “prioritise” the issue of restricted breeds.

But public opinion is by no means united in support of a ban. As far as some commentators are concerned, there are no bad dogs, just bad owners. Attempting to eradicate entire breeds is cruel and ineffective, they say. Bully XLs, they insist, are just the latest frontier in the roiling culture wars, and an echo of the mass panic that led to the banning of pit bulls in the 1980s.

At least one of those statements holds some truth: the ban in the UK has not yet reduced the number of attacks. Just last week, a five-year-old boy in Hull had half of his scalp ripped off in an XL bully attack. In all, there are thought to be around 50,000 XL bullies in the UK, and they were responsible for 44 per cent of attacks on humans in 2023, and three-quarters of fatalities in the past three years. According to campaign group BullyWatchUK, Morey’s death was the 16th in the UK and Ireland attributable to the XL-type in a year and a half. Think about those figures for a moment. And then consider that there are 60,000 wolves in North America and 15,000 in Europe, who killed 26 people worldwide in the 18 years up to 2020. Sure, this number would be higher if we brought wolves into our homes and tried to make them pets. But when those wolves then turned on their owners, we probably wouldn’t blame bad owners; we’d say that animals capable of hunting and killing humans shouldn’t be family pets.

As Will Dunn notes in the New Statesman, XL bullies have become a commodity in much the same way as tulips in the 17th century

It’s true that there are some parallels to the culture war over pit bulls: then, as now, the debate has featured incumbent politicians under pressure to show they mean business on law and order, only delighted to seize on a populist and conveniently inanimate, scapegoat. There was a class subtext then too, best encapsulated by then-British home secretary, Kenneth Baker, when he sniffily referred in his memoir to “the ‘pit bull lobby’ ... sporting tattoos and earrings while extolling the allegedly gentle nature of their dogs, whose names were invariably Tyson, Gripper, Killer, or Sykes.”

But the main difference now is that the market in dogs for people who like the idea of boosting their TikTok credibility with a “sweet, loyal” #furbaby capable of crushing a human bone in its jaw is brisk. XL bullies, which emerged in the 2010s, are a creation of the online age – they are bought, sold and aggressively marketed on social media. And because the market is so lucrative, even if the dogs were wholesale banned, some other ripped, pit bull hybrid would inevitably be along to take their place. Pups are currently on sale here for €2,500 apiece, with some “available for worldwide shipping”. Male dogs offered for stud reportedly make around the same rate as a puppy. In the UK, there are reports of dogs fetching as much as £45,000. As Will Dunn notes in the New Statesman, XL bullies have become a commodity in much the same way as tulips in the 17th century or NFTs in the 21st.

Bans may not be entirely effective, easy to enforce or sit comfortably with liberal sensibilities – but then what’s the alternative? Politely ask owners to have their dogs trained? Gently suggest to breeders they explore less deadly breeds?

If we are not prepared to simply resign ourselves to the fact that a number of people every year – 16 in the past 18 months; how many in the next 18? – will die in the jaws of an XL bully, we must do something.