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History of the St Bernard Breed

Written by Sherry Cole-Sykora

The Saint Bernard breed enjoys one of the most romantic and well-known histories of all dog breeds. The Mention of Saint Bernards conjures up an image of heroic rescue dogs patrolling the snowy Alps with brandy kegs around their necks. The hard part is separating myth from reality about the origins of this noble breed.

For clues, let’s first look at the St Bernard’s homeland - the Alps, one of the grandest mountain chains in the world. The Great Saint Bernard Pass, most notably associated with the breed, is located on the Swiss-Italian border in the western part of the Alps, the Pennine Alps. The Pennine range claims ten of the twelve highest summits in the Alps including the fabled Matterhorn. 

The Great St Bernard Pass is a treacherous route from Martigny, Switzerland to Aosta, Italy that has been in use since prehistoric times. It covers 50 miles (80 km) of rugged vertical terrain through an unforgiving climate of rapid-changing weather.  Icy winds, blowing fog and forty feet of snow pile up on the Pass seven - eight months of the year, although snow is possible any month.  Measured by modern 21st century standards travel is difficult, if not impossible at times (except by a modern tunnel that bypasses the Hospice and summit all together). Still today a large portion of the historic, narrow road winding over the top of the summit remains impassible from October through May.

In this inhospitable part of the world, the Great St Bernard Pass, remote and avalanche-prone, may seem like a place cutoff from the world, but it has served as a vital link between northern and southern Europe since the Bronze Age.   As the shortest route across the Alps, the Pass witnessed the crossings of such notable figures as Julius Caesar, Augustus, Charlemagne, Henry the IV, Pope Stephen, and Napoleon as well as scores of ordinary people making the pilgrimage from Canterbury, England to Rome.  Reportedly, by the early 19th century as many as 18 - 20,000 people annually were utilizing the Great St Bernard Pass.

At the top of the Pass, sitting at 8,100 feet (2,469 meters) above sea level, is a monastery called The Hospice du Grand-St.-Bernard. This hospice has continuously served as a refuge for weary travelers since 1050 AD, providing a safe haven from robbers, avalanches, fierce storms, and treacherous mountain terrain that threatened all alpine travelers.

The hospice, like the dogs and the pass, acquired its name from an 11th century Augustinian monk, Saint Bernard of Menthon, who served as archdeacon of nearby Aosta.  Bernard established the monastery as a traveler’s way-station - a welcome symbol of hospitality and safety at one of the highest summits in Europe. The Hospice occupies one of the highest elevations in the world inhabited year-round and continues to serve hikers and skiers to this day.

In this hostile and unforgiving alpine environment, an un-named breed of large mountain dog saved over 2, 000 people from the white death, ranging from small children to Napoleon’s soldiers, during their 200 years of service. The heroic deeds of those brave alpine canines with their uncanny ability to foretell storms and avalanches, and recover travelers lost, confused, half frozen or buried in the snow became world-famous

The greatest rescue dog of all and most famous was Barry. He is credited with saving 40 lives and was so celebrated and respected in his time (1800-1814) and afterward that the hospice continued to honor the original Barry by always having one of their dogs named Barry. There is a statue in Barry’s honor in Paris, and he has been the subject of numerous books and movies about his life.

Nevertheless the question of how St Bernard’s came to be on the Pass and when, is shrouded in myth.  Legend tells us that the dogs were the brain-child and creation of the Hospice.  It is widely believed that Monks developed the specialized rescue dogs that later became the St Bernard breed from Roman Molossus dogs crossing the Alps with the Roman Army

Contrary to this romantic notion, the more likely scenario is that the St. Bernard breed descended from early farm dogs already present and working in the surrounding valleys of the Alps for thousands of years prior to the naming of the pass, the existence of a hospice, and long before the arrival of the Roman army.

Though it is not known how or exactly when dogs were first brought to the Hospice, there are a few feasible ways this may have happened. The first may have simply been a gift from a grateful traveler whose life had been saved.  Or it is also possible a dog could have been acquired by the monks to serve as a companion during the long snowbound winters, or for protection of the isolated hospice against bandits and thieves.

However it happened, some of the valley dogs found their way to the hospice in all probability between the years of 1660 – 1670. Their presence at the Hospice has been recorded in paintings dating from 1695 and confirmed by official Hospice documents dated from 1703. There is evidence that the early dogs hauled goods and turned the spit in the kitchen, but their real worth as rescue dogs quickly eclipsed these ordinary uses.

Unfortunately there is also no written record of how dogs came to be used for rescue work though it may have been discovered while they were servings as watch dogs for the Hospice or guardians of the Monks. When the dogs’ role expanded to accompany the Monks on their rounds to nearly villages, it is easy to imagine how quickly the Monks discovered these dogs had a sixth sense about avalanches, were excellent pathfinders with a great sense of direction even in heavy snow storms or thick fog, and that they could cross ice fields that men dared not come close to.

Somehow these large dogs learned to rescue human beings, by watching the monks, or purely relying on instincts of their own. Perhaps the dogs used an old herding instinct to round up human beings and get them to the safety of the hospice. We do know that the dogs’ keen sense of smell enabled them to locate helpless travelers buried in the snow much quicker and more efficiently than the Monks were able to accomplish on their own.

The breed’s unrecorded history leaves many unanswered questions such as how the dogs learned to lie down next to the half frozen person to warm them or why they aroused the person by licking their face.  Also unknown is how they learned to work in packs or groups so cooperatively that they could be sent out on missions without human beings - some laying on either side of the victim while others returned to the hospice to summon help.  

On top of the characteristics that helped St Bernards excel at rescue work, the dogs loved the snow and were tolerant of the cold. Anyone who has spent time with St Bernards realizes they are extremely intelligent, love to be out in snow and quickly learn how affectionate Saints can be. It is the breed’s natural instinct to try to please people. They love the companionship of humans!

And although St Bernard litters were bred at the hospice, the Monk’s more significant role in breed development was in discovering these animals had amazing instincts as rescue dogs. The Hospice must also be credited for the breed’s wide spread popularity, especially Barry’s. Due to the geographical significance of the Pass in its heyday, tens of thousands of people annually utilized the Great St Bernard Pass.  Those travelers had the opportunity to appreciate first-hand the tangible significance of the life-saving dogs and the services of the Hospice, or at the very least, to hear about their most recent rescue, or the heroics of the great Barry.

The bottom-line is that the Hospice had little to do with the actual origin of the St Bernard breed.  Instead the monks, and the travelers they helped, became the fortunate beneficiaries of a local breed of large dog which, that as it turned out, had the remarkable ability to aid the Monks in their humanitarian work in the rugged region between Switzerland and Italy, that later became known as the Great Saint Bernard Pass

So let’s examine what we know to be factual in more detail:

Two acknowledged experts on the origin of domestic dogs and the evolution of modern breeds, Studer (1874) and Hauck (1965), independently came to the conclusion that all European Mastiff-type canines evolved locally from Neolithic dogs present and living in the Alps.  Research shows us that these canines, referred to only as peat-bog dogs, existed in the Swiss Alps as early as the Bronze Age (1200-800 B.C.)  The peat-bog dogs’ Neolithic ancestors likely arrived in the area along with nomadic shepherds searching for greener pastures.

Though it’s popular to perpetuate the idea that the St Bernard breed originated from Tibetan Mastiffs through Molossus dogs left behind by the Romans, neither Studer or Hauck could find evidence to substantiate that theory.   After researching ancient dog skulls from the Bronze Age, Professor Theophil Studer came to the conclusion in 1874 that there existed a “collective breed of large alpine dogs” (Kollektivrasse der grossen Alpenhunde) dating from prehistoric times to which all modern Swiss breeds, including the St Bernard, could easily be traced.  And Hauck, a noted canine historian, concurred in 1965.

Max Siber also wrote a short history of the Saint Bernard for the first Swiss Stud Book published in 1884. Siber said "Some fanciers believe that Saint Bernards have only lived on the name-giving Pass. This is not true, Saints have been kept everywhere on Swiss passes and they are even at home in the valleys of the Valais (southern Switzerland) and in the countryside of Berne."

Then in 1927, Professor Albert Heim, a noted canine authority, said in a speech to St Bernard judges: "Valley dogs and dogs from the Hospice were and still are of the same breed. Personal reports, pictures and extensive collections of skeletal artifacts do not allow any other conclusion.”

There is also further proof that the Saint Bernard breed had been living in and around the Alps for thousands of years:   As far back as 1350 the De Hailigberg Family coat of arms (De Hailigberg means Holy Mountain in German) clearly depicted a dog easily recognizable as a St Bernard on their crest, proving these dogs were widely spread across the valleys of Switzerland at least 350 years before the oldest surviving record of the breed’s existence at the Hospice. 

And finally, one last example supports this theory that the dogs had been high in the Alps for about as long as the people and exists directly from Hospice records. The winters of 1816 – 1818 were particularly severe, and as a result, the Monastery’s archives chronicle occasions when both monks and dogs died while trying to save a traveler’s life. So many dogs perished doing rescue work during those years, that the Hospice strain came dangerously close to becoming extinct.  But within two years the Monks had replenished their stock with similar dogs from local villages and nearby valleys so they were able to continue their essential rescue work with the help of the dogs.

So, the early ancestors of the St Bernard were hardy alpine dogs, kept by farmers or villagers as guard dogs to protect homesteads or livestock, and as draft animals to pull carts or sleds with milk, cheese, butter and other supplies to and from local villages.  These large mountain dogs were working dogs, born out of necessity and utilized for their abilities, not their appearance.   They existed for centuries without being known as a particular breed. By 1000 AD, the red and white ancestral dogs of the St Bernard breed were known by various names such as ‘Valley Dog’ (Talhund), ‘Farm Dog’ (Bauernhund) ‘Butcher's Dogs’ (Metzgerhunde), or ‘Cow Herders Dogs’ (Kuherhunde).

Over time, functional differences along with the genetic isolation present everywhere in the western Alps provided the opportunity for different breeds to develop from local stock.  This eventually resulted in phenotypical differences (outward appearances) between watch dogs, hunting dogs and herding dogs.   Seven different Swiss breeds were born from the valleys of the Alps . . . among them the amazing gentle giant known as the St Bernard.