Dog owner had St Bernard puppies put down after they started attacking her
A dog owner says she was forced to put down her two St Bernard puppies after they attacked her twice.
In one of the terrifying assaults, the dogs slammed Rachel Adams, 59, to the ground, bit her, then dragged her outside.
Rachel – who said ending the puppies’ lives was ‘devastating’ – is now urging prospective dog buyers to investigate the bloodline of the pets, saying breeders may knowingly be selling aggressive dogs.
She bought the two St Bernard dogs, called Alan and Dave, in February last year for £3,600.
She and her husband Paul Adams, 53, were very happy with the puppies initially, but soon noticed they were anti-social with people and other animals.
The couple, from Oxford, spent eight months trying to train the behaviour out of the dogs, but following the second attack felt they had no choice but to put them down.
Rachel said: ‘We will never get over having to make that decision. We were both utterly devastated, but we had no choice in the end.
‘Both attacks came from nowhere. It makes my blood run cold to think of them.
‘But otherwise the boys were very loving with Paul and I.’
She said the situation got ‘worse and worse and worse’, adding: ‘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.’
Rachel and Paul previously ran a rescue centre and are used to handling large breeds.
But within a couple of weeks they realised the pups were far more difficult than any dogs they’d cared for before.
It wasn’t long before the St Bernards, who weighed around 50kg each, couldn’t be left on their own as they would attack Rachel and Paul’s other four dogs.
The couple also had to ‘dog proof’ their home and seven acres of land as the dogs weren’t safe around other people and animals.
By May – around three months after the dogs arrived – the puppies were too afraid to leave a 10-by-10 foot square patch.
It was in October last year that the two dogs attacked Rachel for the first time, when she was feeding them breakfast.
They jumped up and pushed her to the floor, bit her and then dragged her outside the house, ripping her clothes in the process.
Rachel somehow managed to fight them off with a metal bin, before running back into her home.
She said: ‘The attack came out of nowhere and afterwards they were so loving, like nothing had happened.
‘You can’t predict fear or aggression, they can be terrified of a new thing each day, that day it was me they feared.’
Despite the attack, Rachel and Paul, weren’t ready to give up on the dogs and wanted keep trying for another month.
But two days later they attacked Rachel again. Thankfully this time she managed to get herself to the other side of the door and close it.
The dogs were euthanised 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 feels strongly that bad breeding was to blame.
She said: ‘People have been knowingly breeding from aggressive dogs and that’s unforgivable.
‘St Bernards are usually loving gentle dogs.’
Reports of dog attacks in the UK have risen 22% in the last two years, according to figures obtained by ITV News.
Last month prime minister Rishi Sunak promised to ban XL Bully dogs in the UK by the end of the year.
The move came after a spate of maulings by the breed, including a shocking incident in Staffordshire on September 14 in which 52-year-old Ian Price was killed by an XL Bully.
St Bernard attacks don’t appear to be common, although in 2021 a one-year-old was mauled in the face by her family’s previously placid St Bernard.
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