This year, an Act of Parliament was passed banning the possession of certain types of dogs. The Dangerous Dogs Act also strengthened the legal liability of owners of all types of dogs, making it clear that if a dog misbehaved in public, its owner would suffer the consequences. There are currently four illegal dogs in the UK. These are the Pit Bull Terrier, the Japanese Tosa, the Dogo Argentino and the Fila Brasileiro. Under the law, it is illegal to own one of the following four dogs in the United Kingdom: despite criminalization, illegal fights with pit bull dogs continue to be widespread in the United States, in the 1990s, about 1,500 dogs died each year in organized fights in this country, and in the mid-2000s, about 40,000 people were involved in illegal blood sports. [6] [7] [15] Pit bull dogs are also used by criminal organizations to protect illegal drugs and intimidate and attack civilians, other criminals, and police officers, with the guy becoming a status symbol in American gang culture. [15] [17] [18] On the other side of the law, pit bull dogs were used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as drug detection dogs. [19] [20] In the UK, it is illegal to sell, abandon, give or breed the following dogs: Pit Bull Terrier, Japanese Tosa, Dogo Argentino and Fila Brasileiro. The ownership of crosses of the four prohibited breeds may also be subject to the same law, depending on the size and characteristics.
The four dogs are commonly used in dog fighting, an illegal practice that has existed for centuries. The other two illegal breeds, the Dogo Argentino and the Fila Brasileiro, were both South American dogs used to hunt large mammals such as wild boar and puma. The law made it illegal to own a dog considered “dangerously out of control” in a public place, and in 2014 it was updated to include private property. The topics of the Dangerous Dogs Act and what makes dogs “dangerous” are hotly debated. It has long been suggested that irresponsible owners are responsible for the defilement of certain breeds, while others argue that generations of breeding for behaviors such as aggression make some breeds inherently more dangerous than others. These disagreements will continue to be discussed, although it seems unlikely that current illegal dogs in the UK will be allowed to return to the UK for the foreseeable future. The Dangerous Dogs Act is a law enacted by the government on July 25, 1991 to prohibit a person from owning a dog of certain breeds that were originally bred for combat. It is also illegal to sell, breed, give away or abandon any of these dogs. In addition, it is a criminal offence for the owner or person responsible for the dog to allow the dog to become “dangerously out of control” in a public place or to be in a place where it is not allowed to be. Puerto Rico had a two-decade ban until 2018, when it was legal to own, sell and import the breed again.
Pit Bull Terriers are legal in the United States. But in Canada, pit bulls are banned in many cities. The law is called a race-specific law. This breed-specific approach is questioned by some people because the training a dog receives and how it is educated can be just as important. So what are the illegal dogs in the UK? And why are they illegal? For centuries, pit bulls were bred for blood sports, usually fighting to the death such as bull and bear bait, in which a group of dogs was used against larger animals in a pit. These “sports” were declared illegal in 1835. However, the Victorians bred pit bulls to participate in dog fights. As a result, the breed has gained a reputation that many people now claim to be wrongly based on the actions of a handful of unethical breeders. Unfortunately, it was a series of attacks involving the pit bull breed that eventually led to the passage of the 1991 Act, declaring the breed and its variants one of the dogs illegal in the UK. The Dogo Argentino was bred for big game hunting as well as for his bravery and protective instinct. These behavioral traits, along with his tall, muscular and powerful physique, led to the banning of Dogo Argentino in the UK. However, this dog is not for a dog owner for the first time – due to the stubbornness, intelligence and dominant tendencies of the dog, it must be kept by an experienced owner.
This is another reason why Dogo Argentino is illegal not only in the UK, but in several other countries around the world.