48 Fun Facts About Saint Bernard

What do the monks of the Great St Bernard Pass now rely on for rescues instead of dogs?

Helicopters now do the rescue work on the pass, while the St. Bernards go up only for the summer, mostly to meet tourists and walk with visitors.

Which country is officially recognised as the St. Bernard's country of origin?

Switzerland: the hospice that bred the dogs stands just on the Swiss side of its border pass, and the St. Bernard is regarded as the country's national dog.

Since 1995, a tiny St. Bernard's head has been the official quality mark stamped on what in the dog's homeland?

Precious metals: in 1995 the dog's head replaced a set of older marks, so one stamp now covers gold, silver, platinum and palladium at every grade of purity.

Which giant German breed is said to come from a hospice St. Bernard crossed with other big dogs around 1840?

Leonberger: breeder Heinrich Essig of Leonberg said he crossed a male from the hospice with two other giant breeds, in legend to match the lion on his town's coat of arms.

Which of these was a common name for the hospice's rescue dogs before the name St. Bernard stuck?

Alpine Mastiffs: the breed went without a settled name for decades, so people also spoke of Hospice Dogs or Barry Dogs until the national kennel club fixed on St. Bernard in 1880.

In legend, how did the rescue dog Barry get a half-frozen boy to the hospice?

Carried him on his back: the tale has Barry lick the boy awake and bear him home alone, but the museum that keeps his body says no dog could manage such a feat.

In The Call of the Wild, Buck, son of a St. Bernard, is stolen to do what work?

Pull sleds in the Klondike: a gardener's helper with gambling debts sells Buck off a California ranch, because the 1897 gold rush had made big, strong dogs worth a small fortune.

According to legend, how did the rescue dog Barry die?

Stabbed by a man he found: the legend has a soldier wake under the snow, take Barry for a wolf and use his bayonet, but Barry really died of old age at 14 after two years of retirement.

In which city's Natural History Museum is the preserved body of the rescue dog Barry displayed?

Bern: Barry was sent there to retire at the prior's request and died in 1814, and his mounted body has been on show at the city's museum ever since.

Why did the rescue dog Barry's museum mount get a bigger head when rebuilt in 1923?

To match the modern breed: by 1923 show St. Bernards were far bigger than Barry had been, so the taxidermist enlarged his head and lifted it out of its meek original pose.

In the 1992 comedy Beethoven, what is the day job of the villain who wants the St. Bernard for experiments?

Veterinarian: Dr. Varnick smears fake blood on his arm and claims Beethoven attacked him, so the family will hand the dog over to be put down.

What naming tradition honours the Great St Bernard Hospice's most famous rescuer?

One dog always carries his name: by tradition the finest male puppy of a litter is called Barry, so there has been a Barry at the kennels ever since the original.

What killed many of the hospice's breeding dogs during the severe winters of 1816 to 1818?

Avalanches: the dogs were caught while out on rescues in three winters of exceptional snow, and the hospice's line came close to dying out.

Why did crossing the hospice's rescue dogs with a long-haired breed in the 19th century backfire?

Ice built up in the fur: snow froze into the long coats and weighed the dogs down, which made them worse at the work rather than better, and the monks went back to favouring short hair.

Which American poet's 'Excelsior' ends with a hound of the monks of Saint Bernard finding the hero frozen in the snow?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has a youth climb an Alpine pass at night, ignoring every warning, and at dawn the monks' faithful hound finds him half-buried, still gripping his banner.

About how many people are the hospice's monks and dogs credited with saving over the centuries?

2,000 is the usual tally: after a snowstorm the dogs went out with the monks, found the way through the drifts and helped dig out stranded travellers.

What became of the Great St Bernard Hospice's kennels and dogs in the early 2000s?

A foundation took them over: the Barry Foundation, named after the hospice's most famous dog, now breeds them in the valley below and brings some back up to the pass each summer.

About what size were the original rescue dogs of the Great St Bernard Hospice?

A German Shepherd is about right: Barry weighed only 40 to 45 kg, and the breed ballooned later, when 19th-century show breeders paid high prices for the biggest dogs.

Which English animal painter pictured two hospice dogs reviving a snowbound traveller in 1820?

Edwin Landseer was a teenager when he painted the scene: one dog barks for help while the other licks the fallen traveller's hand to revive him.

What do the monks of the Great St Bernard Hospice say about their dogs carrying brandy casks?

No dog ever carried one, the monks insist: the little barrel was a painter's invention of 1820, and brandy would in any case have chilled a snowbound traveller faster.

In the 1936 Disney cartoon Alpine Climbers, who gets tipsy with a St. Bernard on the brandy from its keg?

Pluto is dug out of the snow by the St. Bernard and revived from its keg, and the two end up roaring drunk together while Mickey is busy fighting off a mother eagle.

Which Russian breed was created by crossing St. Bernards with Caucasian Shepherd Dogs?

Moscow Watchdog: the Soviet army's Red Star kennel bred it in the late 1940s, crossing St. Bernards for size with Caucasian Shepherds for guarding instinct, to watch warehouses and railways.

How does the American Kennel Club classify the St. Bernard?

Working Group: the AKC files the St. Bernard with dogs bred to guard, haul and rescue, and the hospice's dogs did all three, plus a turn in the kitchen walking a wheel that spun the roasting spit.

The four Sennenhund mountain breeds resemble the St. Bernard, so how do they differ in colour?

They are tricolour, black, white and tan against the St. Bernard's red and white; both types are thought to descend from the big farm dogs of the Alps.

Which future Hollywood star made his feature film debut as a schoolboy in the St. Bernard comedy Beethoven?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has only a small part as a schoolmate. When a couple out to swindle the family come to dinner, Beethoven winds his leash round their chairs and drags them down the street.

Deep-chested giants like the St. Bernard are prone to which sudden, life-threatening stomach emergency?

Bloat: the stomach swells with gas and can twist shut, which is why owners of big dogs are told to feed several small meals a day and skip hard exercise around mealtimes.

Who was the Saint Bernard behind the breed's name?

The hospice's founder was Bernard of Menthon, an 11th-century archdeacon of Aosta who set up the refuge on the pass so travellers and pilgrims would have shelter from the snow.

The Great St Bernard Hospice was built to shelter medieval pilgrims crossing the Alps on their way to which city?

Rome: the pass lay on the great pilgrim road from northern Europe, whose stages were written down for an archbishop of Canterbury around 990 and which is walked today as the Via Francigena.

Which author walked his St. Bernard, Porthos, in Kensington Gardens, where he met the boys who inspired his most famous play?

J. M. Barrie put Porthos into his 1902 novel The Little White Bird, where the narrator's huge St. Bernard shares the pages with the very first appearance of Peter Pan.

The Great St Bernard Pass leads from the canton of Valais over the Alps into which country?

Italy: the road drops to the city of Aosta on the southern side, and because the summit is snowbound for most of the year a road tunnel now carries the traffic underneath.

Whose army crossed the Great St Bernard Pass in May 1800, as painted on a rearing horse by Jacques-Louis David?

Napoleon's: David showed him calm on a rearing stallion, but he actually followed his troops over the pass a few days later on the back of a mule.

Which ancient god had a temple at the top of the Great St Bernard Pass?

Jupiter: his temple stood beside the ancient road over the summit, and for centuries afterwards the pass itself was known as Mons Jovis, the mountain of Jove.

Canons of which religious order have run the Great St Bernard Hospice since the 11th century?

Augustinians: the men everyone calls the St. Bernard monks are in fact canons regular, priests living in community under the Rule of St Augustine, and have been for nearly a thousand years.

Which Dickens novel has its newly rich family shelter at the Great St Bernard hospice beside the frozen dead?

Little Dorrit: Dickens had stayed at the hospice in 1846 and described its mortuary in a letter, and a decade later he had the Dorrits arrive to find the mountain's dead standing in a grated house by the door.

In the film Beethoven, why does the Newton family's puppy get that name?

He barks along to the Fifth Symphony: little Emily picks out its famous opening on the piano, the stray puppy joins in, and the family finally has a name for him.

Which hit-making 1980s writer-director co-wrote Beethoven under the pseudonym Edmond Dantès?

John Hughes left the script behind when he parted ways with Universal, on condition his name stayed off it, so the credit went to the real name of the Count of Monte Cristo.

Who played the grumpy father, George Newton, in the 1992 film Beethoven?

Charles Grodin took the long-suffering dad part that Dean Jones used to play in Disney's animal comedies, while Jones himself switched sides to play the film's villain.

How many St. Bernard puppies were used to play the litter in Beethoven's 2nd?

Over 100: St. Bernard pups grow so fast that each seven-week-old had to be swapped out within about ten days, before it looked too big to pass for the same puppy.

Who wrote the 1981 novel Cujo about a rabid St. Bernard?

Stephen King got the idea in 1977, when he rode his ailing motorcycle to a backwoods Maine mechanic and a huge St. Bernard came out of the barn growling and went for his hand.

In the novel Cujo, what animal bites the St. Bernard and gives him rabies?

A bat: Cujo chases a rabbit to a small cave, wedges his head into the opening, and is bitten on the nose by one of the sick bats roosting inside.

In which fictional Maine town is the novel Cujo set?

Castle Rock had first appeared two years earlier in The Dead Zone, and Cujo keeps returning to that book's killer policeman, Frank Dodd, who seems tied to the monster in a small boy's closet.

What car breaks down at the Cambers' garage in the novel Cujo, trapping Donna and Tad?

Ford Pinto: the book grew from the idea of a whole story played out in one cramped space, and its author, who drove a troublesome Pinto himself, made that space Donna's stalled car.

Cujo shares his name with the alias of a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the group behind whose 1974 kidnapping?

Patty Hearst's: 'Cujo' was how the press spelled the alias of her captor Willie Wolfe, and in the novel Donna herself remembers the name from news reports about the group.

In Jack London's The Call of the Wild, Buck is half St. Bernard and half what?

Scotch shepherd dog: his mother, Shep, is why Buck weighs only 140 pounds instead of matching his father Elmo, a huge St. Bernard.

Which NHL team's mascot, Bernie, is a St. Bernard?

Colorado Avalanche: a breed famous for digging people out of the snow was the natural face for the team, and Bernie, short for Bernard, has worked the crowd in Denver since 2009.

Why was Bamse, a St. Bernard ship's mascot in wartime Scotland, given his own bus pass?

To fetch his crew from pubs: the Norwegian minesweeper's huge mascot would lead sailors back to the ship before curfew, and in 2006 the town of Montrose put up a bronze statue of him.

Peter Pan films have cast the nursemaid dog Nana as a St. Bernard, but what breed is she in the original novel?

Newfoundland: the novel calls Nana 'a prim Newfoundland dog', hired as the children's nurse because the Darlings could not afford a human one.

Which aviation pioneer owned a St. Bernard named Scipio?

Orville Wright got Scipio in March 1917 and photographed him again and again: his glass-plate negatives of the dog sit in the Library of Congress with the brothers' pictures of their flights.