South Yorkshire Police reveal they still receive around 5 daily calls to do with dangerous dogs
It comes following our investigation into the massive rise in dog bite attacks across the region between 2021-2025
We've been asking South Yorkshire Police why we've seen a 'huge rise' in dog attacks across the region.
Our investigation's found the amount of people bitten by various breeds in the past 5 years has risen by over 70%.
Steve Usher is the lead on dangerous dogs at South Yorkshire Police - who reckons a lot of dogs lacked 'social interaction' during lockdown.
He feels once the rules in covid were relaxed - plenty of dogs might not have been able to handle seeing more people again:
"The pandemic - where we saw dog ownership increase - the isolation that brought and those dogs hitting maturity - have a played a part.
"We also saw the increase in ownership and breeding of XL bully type breeds, and we witnessed the legislation being brought in by the government.
"So we saw that increase in awareness of people within our communities, and with that has come the additional reporting around these incidents as and when they've happened.
"It may well be that we need to seize the dog and kennel it, while we better understand and investigate the incident.
"We need to make sure that we can keep everybody safe and free from harm.
"We always look at all tactical options before kennelling, such as rehoming any dogs under investigation, but the priority is keeping people safe.
"It's not a quick process - but we maintain the welfare of the dogs.
"We engage with charities and make sure the dogs get enrichment while they're in our care - such as access to vets - but at times we can be near capacity, which is something we have to keep a close eye on.
"The NHS and social care are another couple of partner organisations - alongside the charities we work with - so by virtue of the figures we've seen in this rising number of dog attack incidents - I believe this is because we've got that confident in the community to report these matters.
"Each incident is risk assessed; and we respond accordingly to what has been reported to us."
The XL Bully ban was brought in nationally back in 2024.