--:-- [Sound of a news report]
--:-- Host: If you're listening on the radio, what you can see here is a group of people surrounding this dog trying to wrestle the dog off somebody who had been attacked.
--:-- Host: We know that an 11-year-old girl was the first victim in this incident. An 11-year-old British girl named Anna Pahn survived an attack earlier this month by a dog that's believed to be an American bully XL.
--:-- Host: 52-year-old Ian Price, who was also attacked by two dogs, also believed to be bully XLs, also this month, did not survive.
--:-- Host: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak soon acted. We will then ban the breed under the Dangerous Dogs Act, and new laws will be in place by the end of the year.
--:-- Host: They're not a breed, but go on, Prime Minister. These dogs are dangerous.
--:-- Host: I want to reassure the public that we will take all necessary steps to keep people safe.
--:-- Host: Coming up, is a bully ban a legitimate response to these attacks, or are bullies being bullied?
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--:-- Host: Today explained. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Host: To understand what's happening in the UK, we often go to Tom McTague.
--:-- Tom McTague: Tom is a political editor of Unheard and a host of the podcast These Times.
--:-- Tom McTague: Well, we've been having a lot of dog attacks, or it seems that we've been having a lot of dog attacks over the last couple of years.
--:-- Tom McTague: Last weekend, 11-year-old Anna Pawn was attacked. The same dog went on to cause serious injuries to two men.
--:-- Tom McTague: It's kind of built up in the public imagination via social media.
--:-- Tom McTague: Why the hell is this being allowed to continue? Why are hugely unqualified, clearly incapable people allowed to own proven lethal weapons?
--:-- Tom McTague: And via legacy media, ordinary media, about what is going on.
--:-- Tom McTague: Well, last year, 3,272 people needed reconstructive surgery after they'd been mauled by a dog, with 419 of those cases involving children aged four or under.
--:-- Tom McTague: And it seems to be a large proportion of these attacks are down to the American XL Bully.
--:-- Tom McTague: XL Bullies were involved in more than half of the fatal dog attacks in the UK over the last three years.
--:-- Tom McTague: Which is a kind of new breed from what we can all understand.
--:-- Tom McTague: And it's so new in fact that we haven't really identified it as a breed and that is part of the problem.
--:-- Tom McTague: So they're not recognised by dog associations such as the Kennel Club at the moment.
--:-- Tom McTague: So are we waiting for an exact definition of this breed?
--:-- Tom McTague: Yeah, exactly that. It's a real challenge.
--:-- Tom McTague: We don't know exactly what an XL bully is right now.
--:-- Tom McTague: So it's a really, really challenging situation to be in.
--:-- Tom McTague: It is not currently a breed defined in law.
--:-- Tom McTague: So this vital first step must happen fast.
--:-- Host: Okay, so you say it's relatively new. It's so new, it hasn't really been identified as a breed yet.
--:-- Host: When was it? It sounds strange asking this about a dog, and I know very little about dogs, but when was it created?
--:-- Tom McTague: It's difficult.
--:-- Tom McTague: And a lot of the British media have been trying to sort of understand the origins of this dog.
--:-- Tom McTague: You know, it's a kind of fashionable symbol among, you know, certain groups in society.
--:-- Tom McTague: When you think about status dogs and who might have them, it's generally the stereotype that comes to mind, isn't it?
--:-- Tom McTague: Young boys, tattoos, low socioeconomic background, me.
--:-- Tom McTague: I mean, this is the thing with Britain.
--:-- Tom McTague: Everything is bound up in class, right?
--:-- Tom McTague: You know, you have certain dogs that certain types of people have.
--:-- Tom McTague: The middle classes have a certain dog.
--:-- Tom McTague: The working classes have a certain dog.
--:-- Tom McTague: Upper classes have a certain dog.
--:-- Tom McTague: They're a kind of signifier, I guess.
--:-- Tom McTague: And this type of dog, the XL Bully, you will find it in inner cities and working class estates.
--:-- Tom McTague: And it's bound up with a kind of status symbol across the UK.
--:-- Tom McTague: It's not the kind of dog that you would see the royal family hanging around with, if you know what I mean.
--:-- Host: Yeah, she's the softest little bugger you'll ever meet in your life.
--:-- Host: Do you piss me off?
--:-- Tom McTague: Sometimes in a case like this, Tom, there will be one attack that is sort of seen as the ground zero, the ground zero incident.
--:-- Tom McTague: It appears online and then everybody's watching and it's like, OK, there have to be huge changes.
--:-- Host: You've said several times that there have been multiple attacks.
--:-- Host: Can you tell me about them and what the public is actually seeing when an attack becomes very, very high profile?
--:-- Tom McTague: So there has been a debate about these dogs for the last couple of years, but it really seems to have grown in intensity over the last few weeks.
--:-- Tom McTague: And in that classic social media sense where it seems to become overwhelming for the government, the pressure seems to just grow like a wave and suddenly there's nothing they can do about it.
--:-- Tom McTague: But if you have a look at the statistics, there is a piece in The Guardian that was very good at explaining this.
--:-- Tom McTague: And it was saying six out of the 10 fatal dog attacks in the UK last year were linked to an XL bully dog and three of the seven fatal attacks this year.
--:-- Tom McTague: So, I mean, I don't know in US terms whether those numbers sound a lot.
--:-- Tom McTague: But I mean 10 dog attacks that killed people in a year that seems quite a high number to me here.
--:-- Host: Obviously we're not as big in terms of population as the US.
--:-- Host: But once that starts to set into the public mind, then every subsequent attack becomes a kind of front page story, or is all over social media.
--:-- Tom McTague: And that is what is happening now.
--:-- Host: So I've said hello to him, stroked him, and then Luna has put her left hand out to stroke him.
--:-- Host: and then he's pushed her to the ground and then he started attacking her face.
--:-- Host: And that's when I started getting the dog off or I started hitting him, punching him.
--:-- Host: We had a thing called the Dangerous Dogs Act that has been in place since 1991 when you had a similar kind of outcry over a number of dogs.
--:-- Host: And you had four types of dog that were banned back then in 1991.
--:-- Host: The Pitbull Terrier, the Japanese Tozer, a Dogo Argentino and something called the Fila Brasilero, which I don't know what they are.
--:-- Host: But that was after 11 serious attacks.
--:-- Host: Oh, no, don't, please, don't.
--:-- Host: Don't take it off.
--:-- Host: When you go into a house and the children are crying as you take it away, yes, it is upsetting.
--:-- Host: We all like working with dogs.
--:-- Host: And to have to do this upsets you on occasions.
--:-- Host: So we're kind of back up to that kind of level that caused the original ban.
--:-- Host: So you've had this number of attacks that have kind of grown linked to this particular breed.
--:-- Host: And then on top of that, you have these really emotive cases where you're talking about children.
--:-- Host: And as soon as children are being attacked, then this kind of raises up to a new level.
--:-- Host: Yeah, I think we understand why the ban is happening.
--:-- Host: How will it actually work?
--:-- Host: How many of these dogs are there?
--:-- Host: And if you have one, what do you have to do now?
--:-- Tom McTague: Well, this is the million dollar question, really.
--:-- Tom McTague: And this is the reason the government was resisting including this breed in the Dangerous Dogs Act.
--:-- Tom McTague: So that's the mechanism for this ban.
--:-- Tom McTague: It's to add to those four breeds that we mentioned and this new breed and then say that that is banned.
--:-- Tom McTague: That is very difficult because you've already got lots of families with this dog.
--:-- Tom McTague: And so people have loved the dog, become a member of their family and it hasn't done anything wrong.
--:-- Tom McTague: And so what do they do?
--:-- Host: We need to stand up and fight this, like, somehow, like, this is fucking ridiculous.
--:-- Host: And if anyone thinks they're coming for my dogs, they're mistaken.
--:-- Host: Because I will fight for my dogs because they are perfect dogs.
--:-- Host: It goes down to the owners, not the fucking breed of the dogs.
--:-- Host: You're seeing some marches and things like that in parts of the country where people have this dog and saying, you know, what are you going to do?
--:-- Host: Put down my dog, destroy it.
--:-- Host: Save our police!
--:-- Host: Save our police!
--:-- Tom McTague: I think this is what the government is working through now.
--:-- Tom McTague: They've almost gone at this policy the wrong way round.
--:-- Tom McTague: And this is another indicator of modern politics in that you feel this pressure from social media.
--:-- Tom McTague: You make an announcement that we are going to ban this and then you figure out how you're going to do it.
--:-- Host: Today I have tasked ministers to bring together police and experts to firstly define the breed of dog behind these attacks with a view to then outlawing it.
--:-- Host: So you're figuring out, well, how much compensation do you give to families whose dogs you destroy or what requirements you put on them if they are to keep such a dog?
--:-- Host: And then the other really basic thing is how do you define this dog?
--:-- Host: What if a dog is kind of a part breed, a half breed of this American XL?
--:-- Host: Is that part of the ban or is that not part of the ban?
--:-- Tom McTague: I think it's very difficult.
--:-- Tom McTague: And actually, these are the reasons that the government was resisting it at first, but then felt that it couldn't resist it any longer.
--:-- Host: For groups that are opposed to this and not just on the grounds that like, I love my dog and he's fine.
--:-- Host: What are they saying big picture?
--:-- Tom McTague: Well, they've got a very reasonable case.
--:-- Tom McTague: You know, the RSPCA is the big kind of animal rights charity in Britain.
--:-- Tom McTague: But you also have other ones like the Kennel Club that I mentioned.
--:-- Tom McTague: And they make this argument that dogs should be judged on, in quotes, their deed, not their breed.
--:-- Tom McTague: And so they oppose a ban.
--:-- Tom McTague: Now, they oppose a ban because they're an animal rights charity.
--:-- Tom McTague: And so they don't want to see animals destroyed, killed, who haven't done anything wrong.
--:-- Tom McTague: Breed is not a reliable predictor of aggressive behaviour in dogs.
--:-- Tom McTague: Any dog has the potential to bite.
--:-- Tom McTague: As we look to reduce dangerous dog incidents, we need solutions that promote responsible pet ownership.
--:-- Tom McTague: That is the essence of their argument.
--:-- Host: But it's coming up against those who say, well, they're essentially a dangerous weapon or they are something that, you know, you need to regulate and deal with like you would any other kind of weapon, knives, guns, those kind of things.
--:-- Host: And again, to sort of spell out the difference between the UK and the US, I guess, is that in the UK, lots of things are banned.
--:-- Host: We already have this law that you can't have certain types of dogs.
--:-- Host: So there is a kind of precedent for this, but you're seeing the kind of a clash of rights in which you're seeing sort of animal rights, people who are the dog owners themselves, and then people who are very scared about what's going to happen to their children, you know, just walking in the street if they, you know, if one of these dogs just gets off a lead.
--:-- Host: Tom McTague is the host of the podcast These Times.
--:-- Host: Coming up, what is it about pit bulls anyway?
--:-- Host: A lot of people are afraid of them.
--:-- Host: What's behind that?
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--:-- Host: It's Today Explained.
--:-- Host: Bronwyn Dickey is a journalist, and she also wrote a book.
--:-- Host: I'm the author of Pitbull, the Battle Over an American Icon.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: A few years into Bronwyn's career, she was on a journalism assignment, and she met a pit bull and she was scared of the pit bull.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And then she wondered, why was she so scared?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: I had heard that the only reason anyone would have a pit bull is if they were interested in dog fighting, that all pit bulls were fighting dogs, that something was genetically wrong with them, and that they might seem nice one minute, but then something would happen and they would snap and they would attack you.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: That they were kind of biological mutants and that they were only acquired as weapons by violent people.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And I very much took it to heart.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: I had no experience with the dogs otherwise, so I didn't know enough to know that that wasn't true.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And so the more I looked into it, the more I realized that the science around why people feared these dogs was really terrible.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: There really was no science.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: It was all kind of folklore and myth and media sensationalism.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And that kind of gave me a window to talk about a lot of other different subjects using the pit bull as a lens.
--:-- Host: What is a pit bull?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Our guest earlier in the show, Tom McTague, was telling us that an American bully XL is kind of a mashup of some things.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: But he said even in Britain, they're having trouble pinning down what this dog is.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Is it a breed? Is it a subbreed? Is it something different?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: What is a pit bull broadly?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: When we say pit bull, we are talking about a shape of dog.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: We are not talking about a specific breed of dog.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: It's a lot like the word hound can mean a lot of different dogs.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Or as I always say, it's like saying sedan.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: A civic is a sedan, but not all sedans are civics.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: So within that category of pit bull, which is vaguely a dog that has some kind of lineage connected to bulldogs and terriers, you have four pure breeds, the American pit bull Terrier, the American Staffordshire Terrier, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and the relatively new or newer American Bully.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: There are many, many, many mixes of these dogs and crosses of these dogs.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And so we're really kind of talking about a very vague shape when we say pit bull.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Pit bull shaped is probably more accurate.
--:-- Host: Okay, fair enough.
--:-- Host: Are pit bull shaped dogs born inherently violent, born ready to fight, born stronger than other dogs?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: I mean, well, it depends on what you mean, and it depends on which dogs you're talking about.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: The group has gotten so diverse at this point.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: There are so many breeders.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: There are so many mixes.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: There are so many accidental litters that it's almost as specific as saying, what are Americans like, or what are Britons like, or what are people from North Carolina like?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Yes, within that large, diverse group, you may have people who have neurological or biological problems or disorders.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: You may have people who are living in stress and trauma, but the group itself is so large, you really can't make any pronouncements about.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: If you go back to the breed's history or the original breed's history, yes, absolutely.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: There were very well-known fighting lines of these dogs, but there are also many dogs that never saw a dog pet.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And so to kind of define the dogs by the people who abused them, I think is unfortunate.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: I mean, it's very much true that that history was there, but it was also true for a lot of dogs that don't get drawn into this.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: So the boxer, the Sharpay, the Boston Terrier, the English Bull Terrier, those all had histories of fighting.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And yet we don't get as worked up about them because we don't have the kind of cultural firestorm around the types of people who own those dogs and what that all means.
--:-- Host: What is the history of bad or problem dogs?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: The first dogs to be kind of demonized, at least in the United States, were not pit bulls.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: They were small, fluffy, white dogs that were then known as German spitzes.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And they were very, very popular.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And the same kind of fear mythology grew up around them because of all kinds of ways that society was changing.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: They were known as ladies' pets.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And there were editorials about that women were having pets instead of having children.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And that was, you know, society was going to hell because of that.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Spits dogs are the fashion.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And if women will have dogs instead of babies, they must expect to suffer the real or imaginary penalties that attach to the unnatural fancy.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal 15, 1878.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: But because they were popular and they were associated with kind of these social changes, people believed that they bit more and therefore they were kind of poisonous and they transmitted rabies.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And we didn't have the science to know that that wasn't true.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: But the first breed ban in America was in New Jersey and it was against the, quote, German spits.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And then you had these kind of cycles of demon dogs after that
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: In the 1920s you had a huge storm of fear around what was then called the German police dog
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Now we call it a German shepherd.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: They were coming back with veterans who had served overseas.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: They were then associated with bootleggers who were hiding alcohol stashes during Prohibition and that kind of thing.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: In the 50s and 60s, you had Dobermans.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Originally, the Doberman was bred for fierceness, but our Dobie today is an exceptionally loyal and stable dog with strong protective instincts.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: There was a St. Bernard fear cycle at once.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Cujo was a St. Bernard.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Cujo!
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Oh, my God, you're a rabbit.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And so it's a very cyclical thing.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: There's always, as society changes, there's always going to be a dog that's considered the monster dog.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And in the 80s, it just happened to kind of coincide with like the emergence of hip hop and the emergence of street culture and kind of the commercial popularity of street culture that way.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And so in the Reagan 80s, when there was a lot of moral panic and a lot of fear.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: New York officials say the animal is nothing less than a living, breathing, lethal weapon when it's in the wrong hands.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: It's like having, putting a gun in the hands of every dissatisfied, bitter, obnoxious, money-seeking maniac.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: They were just kind of the next demon dog on the conveyor belt.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Well, it's become a very popular dog for a very unsavory element of our humane community.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: But there was a very different media landscape and it became much more political about them.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: It sounds like it became racialized.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Very much.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: There's so many things do in the U.S., right?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Because if we're talking about hip-hop culture, urban youth, right, we are talking about Black Americans.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Without a doubt.
--:-- Host: So tell me about what we see.
--:-- Host: You say to some degree it's the same as the demon dog trope, but to some degree it's different.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Where are the differences?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: What makes this situation with the pit bull unique in America?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Its association with hip-hop culture and sheep culture and people of color has, at least as far as I've been able to tell in my research and has been my experience, and I've been looking into this for a very long time, it's become a proxy for a lot of other social concerns for people.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: People don't just fear the dog in the way that they have feared other dogs in the past.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: They want to eradicate them.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: They want to get them out of their communities.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: They talk about them in terms that are borrowed from the one drop rule, that they don't want those dogs out in the gene pool kind of adulterating the good dogs of the neighborhood, that sort of thing.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: With housing, you have landlords, rather than saying they don't want certain people in their apartment complexes, they'll say they just don't want people with certain dogs.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And that's kind of a way to get around other things.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And I believe it was the early 90s in Boston, there was kind of a pilot program where ownership of a pit bull was used as kind of an excuse for a stop and frisk situation with law enforcement.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Law enforcement would go to certain neighborhoods and see young men with pit bulls and say, give me your license or I need to basically get all this kind of information about them that they wouldn't otherwise be entitled to just because they had a, quote, pit bull dog.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And so it has ceased to be about dogs or human-animal relationships anymore, and it has become absolutely a culture war, another kind of casualty of the culture wars.
--:-- Host: Is it still that way in 2023?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Yes, less so, but still yes.
--:-- Host: I think the good thing that's happened in the past decade or so is that now these dogs really are so popular and people are so used to seeing them everywhere with every type of person from every type of background that they don't have the kind of shock value that it used to have 20 or 30 or even 40 years ago.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: But in other places, as we're seeing in the UK, that outrage cycle has now repeated itself.
--:-- Host: Have you ever owned a pit bull?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Yes.
--:-- Host: Okay. Well, I mean, a mixy, you know, whatever Durham dog, I always like to say yes.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And she, you know, her genetic testing is Australian Shepherd or something and American Staffordshire.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: I mean, who knows, right?
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And she is a wonderful dog and I, she is our heart.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: She is very snugly and wonderful.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And I always like to kind of follow up quickly with, and that doesn't mean that I deny that other people have had really, really bad experiences.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And I never want to kind of erase that or like invalidate their fear, which I think is completely understandable.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: A lot of times you see this as like a war of anecdotes where people will say, I'm terrified of these dogs.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: My neighbor had one and I always felt menaced or it went after my dog, et cetera.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And for me to say, well, but mine's really lovely, doesn't really matter because it doesn't, you know, it's like saying, well, I got on a plane and there was turbulence and I was terrified and I never want to get on a plane again for someone to say, well, I've been on planes and they're fine.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: It doesn't really, you know, it doesn't help.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: Like fear, fear doesn't work that way.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: And so I never try to like take people's fear away or invalidate their fears.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: But I think we can do better in terms of for those people who want more information, who want real science, who want empirical policies and real data.
--:-- Bronwyn Dickey: I think there is a lot of space to replace that fear with information.
--:-- Host: That was the author Bronwyn Dickey.
--:-- Host: Today's show was produced by Hadi Muagdi and edited by Amina Al-Sadi.
--:-- Host: Miles Bryan hopped into Fact Check and David Herman engineered the show.
--:-- Host: I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Host: It's Today Explained.
