A dog trainer has called for two expensive mastiffs, weighing more than 30 stones between them, to be destroyed after they attacked her Labrador.

Mel Akeroyd, 29, was out walking her three-year-old chocolate Labrador, Harvey, when two male French Mastiffs, worth up to £2,000, broke away from their leads to get to them.

Miss Akeroyd was knocked to the ground as the dogs, also known as dogue de Bordeaux, launched their attack on Harvey.

The dog sustained a wound which exposed the bone of his front left leg, and an injury to his nose. Miss Akeroyd's finger was injured as she put her hand into the mouth of one of the dogs to prise it off her pet.

Now she says her dog, which she described as timid, has "been damaged" and will no longer be able to be work as a demonstration dog as part of her dog training work.

She said: "I was thrown to the floor as they tried to get to my dog.

"I was terrified. I banged my head on a wall but I got up quickly and my dog was on its back and the other two were on top of him.

"The dogs' owner was trying to get them off, which he managed to do, but then they broke free again. It is all a bit of a daze, I was just screaming."

Eventually the dogs' owner managed to pull his dogs into his house.

Miss Akeroyd and her dog were taken in by a neighbour and Harvey was taken to a vet in Allerton, where he underwent an operation for his leg wound.

Miss Akeroyd attended Bradford Royal Infirmary for a tetanus injection.

She said: "They need to be put down. I believe that if you have a dog, you need to be able to control it. For these dogs to break from their owner shows he can't control them, so he should not have them. It is bad upbringing. I will do everything to make sure they will be put down "They could have seriously injured a child trying to get to my dog, they would have done anything to get to him.

"Harvey's character will be totally different, I won't be able to use him as a demonstration dog any more until he gets one-to-one treatment."

Harvey was back home in Wilsden yesterday, where Miss Akeroyd lives with her parents who run the village post office. They alerted Bradford Council's dog warden service and the police.

A Bradford Council spokesman said the matter was now in the hands of the police. A West Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said an investigation was under way.

e-mail: mel.fairhurst@telegraphandargus.co.uk

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