Man explained how he changed the behaviour of ‘the most dangerous dog breed in the UK’

Dangerous dogs are a hot topic at the moment thanks to the XL Bully and their ban which was recently announced by the government.

There have been a slew of incidents where people have been attacked by an XL Bully and a ban on the breed has been announced.

That means no more selling, breeding or giving away the dogs, though it's not likely to result in a cull of the XL Bully as current owners will instead be required to muzzle them.

Only a handful of breeds are banned in the UK, though the XL Bully is not among the top five most dangerous dogs in Britain.

Going by number of bites suffered by Brits, the actual most dangerous dog is the Jack Russell, which may come as a shock to dog lovers.

You wouldn't think it to look at them but the small terriers are rather prone to biting people, especially if they're not taught good behaviour at a young age.

That's where dog trainers come into the mix, and TikToking canine behaviourist, William Atherton, posted a video showing how he got a particularly aggressive Jack Russell to behave.

He explained that the dog was 'trying to bite everyone and everything that it sees' when it was brought to him, making it 'downright dangerous for the owners to live with'.

Things were so bad that the dog's owners couldn't have anyone come round to their home for fear that the Jack Russell would bite the guests, leaving Atherton with the task of getting the problematic pooch to behave itself.

The canine behaviourist explained that he put the dog through behaviour modification and obedience training to sort it out.

This involves conditioning the dog to respond differently than it's used to doing and training it to do what the owners tell it.

It may all sound pretty simple, but it had a transformative effect on the dog as Atherton showed the dog had gone from being 'incredibly dangerous' to being able to be walked on a loose lead by the owner.

While this one went well, there are times when training dangerous dogs goes badly wrong.

One attempt to train an XL Bully took a turn for the worse after the canine sunk its teeth into a trainer and didn't let go when ordered to.

While the trainer had been wearing a bite-proof suit, he'd not been wearing bite-proof shoes and when the XL Bully did let go it then sunk its teeth into his foot.

Featured Image Credit: TikTok / @iamwillatherton

Topics: Dogs, Animals, UK News

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker