Neighbours stand chatting casually on a suburban pavement, one holding his dog. The next moment, the mundane scene descends into the stuff of nightmares. In a video released by South Yorkshire police, which looks as if it has been caught by a doorbell camera, a 47-year-old man has a large black dog, tail wagging, on a lead. Seconds later, the man is being rolled across the road like a carrier bag tumbling in the wind. The muscular dog, perhaps disturbed when the man attempts to untangle the lead from his paws, leaps at him, and then, joined by a second large, loose dog, knocks him to the ground. A 14-year-old girl attempts to intervene, to a soundtrack of piercing screams.
The attack, which unfolded in Sheffield last autumn, left the man with deep cuts and puncture wounds, while the teenager suffered minor injuries. A man and a woman were arrested on suspicion of possession of a dangerously out-of-control dog. And the breed of the dogs? These days, when we think “dog attack”, we’re quite likely to picture an XL bully, the American breed whose jowly mugshots have glared under headlines of maulings and fatalities, and whose ban under the Dangerous Dogs Act came into force a year ago.
But it has now been claimed there is a new “status dog” on the block, gradually filling the space left by the XL: the cane corso, an Italian mastiff few outside the canine world have heard of (and even fewer can pronounce – it’s can-ay corso). It is this breed that is believed to have instigated the attack in Sheffield (the second dog was a mastiff).
Last month, a canine behaviour specialist stoked anxiety after suggesting a rising unscrupulous interest in the cane corso, which he described as “an XL bully on steroids”. His remarks haven’t landed without controversy. Many swear the dogs are loving companions. Celebrity owners include the footballer Marcus Rashford, the actor Vin Diesel and the Boyzone star Ronan Keating – who flew his cane corso to Australia with the family last Christmas.
But Wendy Cummins, 52, a veterinary nurse, dog trainer and treasurer of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, agrees the breed seems to be replacing the XL bully, to dangerous effect. Her surgery has euthanised two cane corsos since Christmas because of uncontrollable aggression. “One we managed to get to the surgery but it was untouchable … We sedated him with food so we could get close to him,” she says. “The other one, the vet had to shoot a dart to sedate it.”
While many owners are responsible, she says, others are not. “They’re lovely dogs if they’re reared correctly and have the correct training, boundaries, and are in the right social environment,” says Cummins, who adores her own German shepherd. “But the trouble with this type of dog is they can be a status symbol. It started with bulldogs, and then moved on to the XL bully. And now, because we have the ban, these types of people just move on to the next dog.” The cane corso? “That’s the breed they’ve gone for, unfortunately, and it’s an absolute crisis for these dogs,” she says.
Bred originally to herd or guard livestock and property, and said to be descended from the molossian war dogs of ancient Rome, the cane corso is reported to have a bite force stronger than a lion’s. They can weigh up to 50kg. “That’s an awful lot of dog,” says Cummins. “We see owners scared of them – they can’t walk down the street; they can’t socialise them. The dogs are in chaotic households with children of different ages, without basic training; their needs are not being met. And then they become aggressive.”
At the end of last month there was a shocking trio of dog attacks, all against children, that occurred within just two days in South Yorkshire. On 29 January a cane corso attacked a 16-year-old girl in Doncaster, leaving her in need of reconstructive surgery. The dog was destroyed at the scene with the owner’s permission. Soon afterwards, in nearby Sheffield, a six-year-old girl was bitten by her family’s pet pocket bully. And just five hours later in Thorne, near Doncaster, a seven-year-old boy was attacked by a pit bull and suffered puncture wounds. All three incidents happened within homes.
They illustrate Britain’s disturbing rise in dog attacks. Freedom of information requests by the BBC found that attacks recorded by police in England and Wales had gone up 21% from 2022 to 2023. NHS England Digital provisional figures for 2022-2023 show that more than 6,000 people were treated for bites or other injuries caused by dogs. No official figures exist for cane corso cases, but the name keeps surfacing.
Last autumn, South Yorkshire police said a cane corso caused severe facial injuries to a woman in her 30s after she tried to separate her fighting pets at home. She required plastic surgery. The very next day another cane corso bit its owner as she tried to break up a fight between it and an XL bully. She ended up in hospital. In April 2023, Wayne Stevens, 51, was killed when his brother Gary’s cane corso cross attacked him at a house in Derby. Gary Stevens was given a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence. The 2018 Love Island winner Jack Fincham was given a six-week sentence after his cane corso, Elvis, bit a runner in Swanley, Kent, in September 2022, followed by a later, separate incident. Fincham, 32, admitted two counts of being in charge of a dangerously out-of-control dog, with one of the incidents causing injury. He was granted bail while he appeals against the sentence.
Elisa Allen, the vice-president of programmes and operations for the animal protection charity Peta UK, believes the cane corso’s aggression is intrinsic. “Humans have intentionally bred it to hunt large game and to fiercely protect farmland from predators … to have massive, muscular bodies, a high prey drive and extremely strong jaws,” she says.
Many responsible owners disagree. John Allison, a trainer and owner of two cane corsos, Vito and Diablo, has a smile in his voice as he describes his “intelligent” pets. “They are calm and relaxed. They’ll just lie around,” he says. His kids – aged 15, three and one – stroke them, although they are never alone with them. “Children should never be allowed to be alone with any dog,” he says.
“Because of their sheer power and size, with negligence, in irresponsible hands, cane corsos can cause a significant risk, the same as any other breed of dog,” Allison concedes. But he’s clear his dogs were bred well, and he has trained them rigorously, and exercises them for two hours a day.
Many argue banning status dogs is futile. “Sadly, any large or powerful dog can also appeal to those who wish to train a dog for illicit purposes, and banning breeds can move these people on to other breeds – or indeed new types of dogs outside of the law,” says Bill Lambert, a spokesperson for the Kennel Club.
About 300 cane corsos are currently listed for sale on the Freeads website, including many for rehoming, with owners admitting they can no longer care for them.
Controversy surrounding dog attacks grew in the 80s, with the American pit bull terrier then public enemy number one. In the US, a Time magazine feature on the breed was headlined Time Bombs on Legs. In the UK, it was among four breeds banned under the new Dangerous Dogs Act in 1991, alongside Japanese tosas, dogos Argentinos and fila Brasileiros.
Under the act, offenders can be imprisoned for up to 14 years, disqualified from ownership or have their dogs euthanised. XL bullies are the only breed to have been banned since. From February last year it became illegal to breed or own one unless holding a certificate of exemption. Some 55,000 of these have been granted. Registered dogs must be neutered, and muzzled in public.
Last year, freedom of information requests by the Independent revealed that in the five months after the XL ban, the number of recorded incidents of out-of-control dogs injuring people or guide dogs rose by 9%. Nine fatal dog attacks have been reported in England and Wales since the ban, all within homes, five involving XL bullies.
But police say they have seized more than 4,500 XL bullies, and the campaigning organisation Protect Our Pets believes the ban is a success because fatalities involving XLs haven’t been in public spaces. It argues that some other breeds should be restricted. “Of course the cane corso can become a problem in time, as well as plenty of other dogs with fighting heritage, and the government should be taking steps now to deal with this,” says Diana Hunter, a spokesperson.
But the dog welfare expert Samantha Gaines says singling out a “type” of dangerous dog leads nowhere. “Dog aggression is a complex issue,” she says. “Sadly, there will always be people who wish to use dogs as weapons or for antisocial behaviour. But whether a dog chooses to show aggression comes down to their breeding, how they were raised and their experiences with people – and not just their type.”
She argues the government should focus on irresponsible breeders, promote responsible ownership and enforce legislation. She also believes licensing for dog owners is key, as does Allison.
“If you do not have the physical capability to handle a large-breed dog,” he says, “you simply should not be allowed to have one. If you don’t have the finances to support correct training, then you shouldn’t be allowed to have one.”
James McNally puts his head in his hands at the “demonising” of the cane corso. As the head of personal injury at Slee Blackwell Solicitors, he has specialised in dog attacks for 10 years, and his civil cases have risen by a third since the pandemic. He puts it down to elevated Covid dog ownership first – there were 11 million dogs in the UK in 2023, up 8% in a year. But a recent analysis of 800 of his cases revealed 73 dog breeds, and even more crossbreeds. Cane corsos were among them. In fact, McNally says: “We’ve dealt with far more cases involving cane corsos than XL bullies.” However, rottweilers and German shepherds feature most highly, and some of the most ferocious attacks were by huskies and akitas.
He sounds angry. He sees the worst consequences of poor handling. Children with “the top of their scalp ripped off”. Young victims bedwetting due to trauma. One client, Alex O’Byrne, from Bridgend, south Wales, describes an attack on his 11-year-old daughter, Lilly, in September 2023. A dog mauled her on their street. “I heard her scream,” he recalls. “It took a chunk out of her cheek, just above her eye, and put something like 11 holes through her hand when she fought it off.” She is permanently scarred. A man pleaded guilty to being in charge of a dangerously out-of-control dog, causing injury, and was sentenced. The dog was a staffordshire bull terrier and German shepherd cross.
O’Byrne believes all dogs can be dangerous, or not. “I grew up with a German shepherd, a guard dog, but it was well trained. It was a nice dog,” he says. More pressing is the fact that the dog that attacked Lilly wasn’t insured, making it harder to claim compensation. Insurance should be mandatory, McNally argues. The XL ban was “easy”, he believes. “The problem is much bigger.”
There were, after all, three breeds in the trio of South Yorkshire attacks. “They can ban the cane corso, which would be an absolute crying shame, and they’ll just move on to another one,” says Cummins.
