A year ago, seven-year-old Lydia was walking to post a letter with her dad when she was savagely attacked by an XL bully that had escaped from a neighbour's garden. Matt says the day turned to horror in an instant, telling us he first saw the escaped dog out of the corner of his eye and within seconds it was "attached" to his daughter's arm, biting her three or four times. He says the dog kept lunging for Lydia and in a frantic effort to stop it mauling his daughter, he had to "lie on top of it". "It was remarkably strong," says Matt. He remembers Lydia's screams and seeing blood coming from her wounds, not knowing if her life was in danger. Lydia ended up in hospital but her dad says it could have been much worse: "I could be dealing with the fact that she's not with me and she's been killed. That kept me awake at night."
The incident left Matt with one question: Why would anyone want to own one of these dogs? He contacted Your Voice Your BBC News - and we took him to meet an XL bully owner to see if he could get some answers.
You might wonder if his daughter had been the victim of a Muslim paedophile gang instead of a dog, would the BBC have arranged a visit to the local mosque? The answer's probably 'Yes', of course...
As we open the gate, Matt visibly gulps. "I don't find myself uncomfortable like this very often," he says, adding that he feels awful to ask Lily to keep her pet away from him. "I feel sad that there's this thing almost automatically between us because of the type of dog it is."
It's called instinct, Matt, although the bloodsport dogs will claim it's 'dog racism'. It's your body warning you that you are in the presence of a large carnivore. Trust your instinct.
Lily, however, says she is used to people acting apprehensively around Doug but tells us she firmly believes that a dog's behaviour is determined by how it is brought up and trained.
Yes, Nicole Morey probably thought that too. And Angelene Mahal. Not to mention 'Ashton' here.
Lily says she got Doug before the ban was introduced and that she has invested significant time into training her family pet. The dog was rescued from a backyard breeder and Lily tells us, if she and Hayden hadn't taken him in, there was a danger he'd have ended up in the wrong hands.
What are the right hands for these mutts, then, Lydia? It's clearly not yours, since if your 'pet' decided to attack someone, there's no way you could prevent it. Even your husband would struggle, unless he's built like the Rock.
Matt says he can understand why Lily has taken Doug in - to rescue him from a different life - but he is still left with the same question: "Why would someone go after that breed of dog? Because all I can see is that it's about power and intimidation."
Nevertheless, Lily insists they can make "great family pets", adding: "[Doug's] not a status thing for us, he's not a weapon. We just love him so much."
I expect if I reread the stories I'd find all the maimed and mangled and slaughtered owners said the same things about thair 'pets' once or twice.
Matt would like licences to be mandatory for all big dogs that can cause harm - and to be conditional on owners showing they have done the correct training.
Lily says she completely agrees and adds that the law should go even further, requiring licensing for all 13 million dogs in the country. She admits her dog could cause more damage than a smaller dog, but says they also fight and attack people.
They rarely kill people, though. And why should the lady across the road from me, a pensioner, be saddled with extra cost and paperwork to own her arthritic West Highland White which poses little risk should it ever turn, except to my ankles?
There are others who do think the Dangerous Dogs Act and XL bully ban are having an impact. Professor Vivien Lees, from the Royal College of Surgeons, told us that even though she and other surgeons were treating similar numbers of patients, they were seeing fewer of the most extreme injuries than they were the previous year.
Well, how much of that is due to a decrease in bully breeds, and how much is due to the fact the victims often skip the surgical team and go straight to the coroner, it's hard to say...
