ST. BERNARD DOGS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 160, 8 June 1937, Page 7

ST. BERNARD DOGS.

BREEDING TO BE ENDED

TRUE STRAIN EXTINCT.

LONDON, June 7

The Geneva correspondent of the Daily Herald says that because 10 of the famous St. Bernard Hospice dogs worried a girl to death their breeding will be discontinued and the dangerous dogs destroyed. This action is the result of an inquiry at which the girl’s father undertook to refrain from taking proceedings if this remedy was adopted. The original St.- Bernard strain is extinct, the present breed being Newfoundlands. The Augustine monks breed them in packs, which may account for their savageness, the correspondent says.

For the first recorded time in history a giant St. Bernard dog from the famous monastery attacked and fatally injured the 10-vear-old daughter of a Swiss doctor while she was lagging behind a party of visitors, reported a Geneva message on May 18. The animal also severely. bit the child s mother. The Hospice of tlio Great St. Bernard, situated at the summit of the Great St. Bernard Pass, dates from f}62, and takes its name from its founder, St. Bernard de Menthon. The St. Bernard dog, which derives its name from the pass, where it is trained by the monks to find travellers lost in the snow, is among the largest, if not the largest, domestic dogs in the world. It has remarkable intelligence and tremendous strength and endurance. The original breed of the Great St. Bernard is of unknown descent.