Why XL bully ban hasn't stopped the bloodbath: Victims tell how dogs with 'death in their eyes' are STILL mauling victims - and why an inbred ancestor called 'Killer Kimbo' plus the 'worst possible dog owners' are to blame
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Nobody thought that a 'family-friendly' dog like Hunter would ever be a danger to baby Arabella. The 18-month-old puppy would regularly join the infant in her travel cot, nuzzling and sniffing at her before wandering off. 'We used to think he was like Scooby Doo,' said one female relative.
![[17-month-old Bella-Rae Birch was killed by an XL Bully in Merseyside in 2021]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/19/21/93328695-14210903-17_month_old_Bella_Rae_Birch_was_killed_by_an_XL_Bully_in_Mersey-a-6_1734644965714.jpg)
But on Wednesday last week, Hunter 'just snapped'. What followed was like a scene from a horror film as the dog attacked the eight-month-old in a frenzy of violence, biting her so badly that she had to be airlifted to hospital with injuries that left her fighting for her life.
![[While they make up less than 1 per cent of the total dog population in the UK, XL Bullies are estimated to have been responsible for six of the ten reported dog mauling deaths this year]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/19/21/93325243-14210903-While_they_make_up_less_than_1_per_cent_of_the_total_dog_populat-a-69_1734643650946.jpg)
Arabella Williams's mother, who had tried to prise the dog's jaws apart as it tossed her daughter around 'like a rag doll', broke a finger in the process. When police arrived at the house in Hawkinge, near Folkestone, Kent, a firearms officer shot Hunter dead in the front room and neighbours later saw the dog's corpse being removed in a body bag.
A 76-year-old woman and an 18-year-old man have been arrested on suspicion of being in charge of a dog dangerously out of control. The case raises some disturbing questions because Hunter was an XL Bully, a breed that many people assume was banned under legislation passed by the outgoing Tory government in February of this year.
But, while it is against the law to sell, give away, abandon or breed from an XL Bully, people who owned dogs before the legislation came into force were entitled to apply for an exemption certificate that would allow them to keep their 'pet' as long as it was muzzled and put on a lead in public.
