‘Our St Bernard puppies attacked me twice. It still broke my heart to have them put down’

A dog lover has spoken of her devastation after her violent puppies left her with no choice but to have them put down.

Rachel Adams, 59, bought two St Bernard dogs - named Dave and Alan - for £3,600 in February 2022.

She and her husband Paul Adams, 53, were delighted with the pups but soon noticed they were anti-social with people and other animals.

The Oxford couple spent eight months trying to change the dogs’ behaviour but, after two attacks on Rachel, they decided to put them down.

They are now speaking out to warn about dog breeding - believing Dave and Alan may have come from a dubious source.

“We will never get over having to make that decision [to put them down],” said Rachel. “We were both utterly devastated, but we had no choice in the end.”

St Bernard dogs have a reputation for being docile but there have been isolated reports of violence.

“Both attacks came from nowhere. It makes my blood run cold to think of them,” continued Rachel.

“But otherwise the boys were very loving with Paul and I. The situation had got worse and worse and worse - their world got smaller and smaller and as a consequence so did ours.

“They were frightened and aggressive. We couldn’t take them out, or leave them, or have people round.

“I couldn’t use the hoover or the hose. They were frightened and would have attacked. In the end, we had to do what we did to protect people in our locality and, of course, myself and my family. If they had ever got out it would have been a tragedy for anyone that they came across.”

The couple used to run a rescue centre and are used to handling large breeds.

But it was clear within a couple of weeks they had their work cut out with Dave and Alan, they say.

Soon the dogs, each weighing around 50kg, couldn’t be left unsupervised, as they were attacking Rachel and Paul’s other four dogs.

Paul even had to miss a wedding to keep the dogs safe, and the couple couldn’t have their grandchildren visit because it was too dangerous.

The home and seven acres of land had to be ‘dog-proofed’ because the St Bernards weren’t safe around other people or animals.

By May, the dogs were too afraid to leave a ten-by-ten-foot square patch.

Dave and Alan then attacked Rachel when she was getting their breakfast for them in October, slamming her to the ground and biting at her.

They dragged her outside - ripping off her clothes.

Somehow Rachel managed to fight them off with a metal bin and run back into her home.

The attack has echoes of those by American XL Bully dogs in recent months. The sometimes deadly assaults have pushed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to promise to ban them by the end of the year.

She said: “The attack came out of nowhere, and after they were so loving like nothing had happened.

“You can’t predict fear aggression, they can be terrified of a new thing each day, that day it was me they feared.”

Paul and Rachel decided to keep trying for a month, but a second attack hit after two days.

Fortunately, Rachel managed to manoeuvre herself to the other side of a door and close it, and the pups were put down that afternoon.

She said: “I honestly thought that second attack was going to be my end. It was so ferocious.

“It absolutely broke our hearts for Paul to drive them to the vet that afternoon, but we had no choice.

“It wasn’t fair on them either. They could have had a beautiful life with us, but they were too scared to go anywhere or enjoy any of it, and we couldn’t change that.”

Rachel believes bad breeding is behind the problem.

She said: “People have been knowingly breeding from aggressive dogs and that’s unforgivable.

“St Bernards are usually loving gentle dogs.”