NEWS AND OPINION: This doesn’t surprise me because there’s always somebody somewhere who unscrupulously makes money out of whatever opportunity arises and this is an opportunistic scam of sorts.
The UK government has banned XL bully dogs from tomorrow. This has naturally resulted in owners of XL bullies, who bought them at exorbitant prices, desperately trying to offload their dogs. This means selling them cheaply sometimes as low as £10 whereas they might have bought them for thousands of pounds.
They often sell them online on platforms such as Pets4Homes.
The government introduced a £200 compensation scheme to XL bully owners who decide to have their dogs euthanised.
Unscrupulous purchasers are buying the cheap XL bully dogs advertised online and then taking them to a veterinarian for euthanasia and claiming the £200 government compensation. A clever scheme to make quick money but one that was not intended to happen.
To try and stop this, Pets4Homes has introduced a minimum pricing rule preventing people from selling XL bully dogs for less than £200 “to ensure that there are no attempts purchase animals in order to benefit from the government compensation scheme for owners”.
RELATED: American XL bully should be docile according to the co-founder of the breed
The compensation scheme ends in February. The government expects there to be quite a substantial rise in people taking the XL bullies to their veterinarians for euthanasia until that time.
Pets4Homes also disallows people advertising pets to be listed as “presents”. This is a general policy which I suspect is in place to prevent other unscrupulous activities because dogs that are advertised as ‘free’ are often abused in some way or other.
The government legislation on XL bullies also includes a scheme to allow owners to apply for an exemption certificate which allows owners to keep the dogs provided they are neutered, micro-chipped and kept on a lead and muzzled in public. Also, the dogs need to be kept in a secure place at home. More than 6,000 owners have applied for exemption certificates.
RELATED: How do I apply for a Certificate of Exemption to keep an XL bully dog in England and Wales?
Defra states that those who don’t apply for an exemption certificate need to take their dog to a veterinarian for euthanasia by January 31. Then they claim the compensation.
A spokesperson for the animal welfare charity Dogs Trust said: “We need effective legislation that allows for early intervention, with a focus on the prevention of dog-bite incidents across all types of dogs. Full traceability of puppy breeding and selling must also be introduced to tackle irresponsible breeding.”
This is a reference to the fact that there are many other non-dangerous dog breeds that bite people from time to time. This needs to be tackled and the Dogs Trust suggests the above.
