144 J Maher et al the age-old proverb ‘give a dog a bad name and hang him’8 (Simpson and Speake 2000), the labelling of dogs as status giving, dangerous and aggressive thrusts these dogs into a vicious cycle of violence The desire to own a status dog is linked to the label9 placed upon them by society and youth peers as ‘socially deviant’ (or antisocial) companions, resulting in a harmful cycle where these dogs: (1) are labelled as aggressive, dangerous and linked to criminality (for example, dog fighting), (2) are established as valued amongst deviant youths; (3) become further associated with oppositional culture and are labelled as socially deviant and vilified by mainstream society, (4) have their status elevated amongst deviant youths and those pursuing anti-social or criminal activities (Ragatz et al 2009 and Schenk et al 2012), and (5) are abandoned, rejected and killed by mainstream society (including non-deviant bull-breed owners) Moreover, ownership of these dog breeds then becomes a tool with which society can label antisocial youth and other owners.10 Labelling theory, which focuses on the impact of social reactions to crime on the offender, has been extensively applied in criminological literature (Becker 1973) It can be understood as involving two main components, which help explain the harms experienced by status dogs First, labels are imposed in part because of the status of those labelling differs to those being labelled Second, as a result of the deviant label applied, secondary deviance occurs, as those labelled struggle to adjust to this new identity Under certain conditions, this may lead the person labelled to greater involvement in crime and deviance Notably, labelling is not always passive; as suggested earlier, status dog owners may actively seek out the deviant label rather than having it cast upon them by others (as indicated in Braginsky et al.’s theory of mental illness 1969) While it is difficult to disentangle how and when the labelling process began, it is likely linked to the historical use of bull types in dog fighting, the spread of ‘pit bull panic’ from the USA in 2002 (Delise 2007) to the UK (and many other countries), the sensationalised media reporting of bull breed attacks on people, the association of these dogs with the working class and the aggressive measures used by the government to eradicate them Status dogs are set apart from other breeds and labelled as inherently dangerous and aggressive Society’s insistence on labelling specific breeds gives rise to the most pervasive harm to status dogs—euthanasia Many countries (for example, the UK, Ireland, USA) have introduced breed specific legislation [BSL] The proverb suggests that a person’s plight is hopeless once his reputation has been blackened attaching a name or a signature to someone or some behaviour 10 See for example the Policing and Crime Act 2009 prohibits ‘status dogs’ taken out in public by ‘gang members’