Steadfast, serious and solid dog, Saint Bernard is long and healthy breed. It is loyal and well devoted breed, eager to remain in the center of the attentions. They are happy when applied on work, otherwise get bored. They are self confident, sometimes independent and stubborn. They are quite sensible and understand the command of the master and cab be presented in competitive obedience shows. They are keen of making amusement but not a very playful to children, rather harmless and soft with children and acceptable temperament towards other pets. They drool at lot; new dog owners should keep this element in their mind.

Saint Bernard is healthy proportioned and tall breed of the dog. They are strong muscled and sturdy build dog with good combination of bone and flesh. They are capable to work in severe winters with deep snow on their way. The breed is available in both short and long coat types. One with short coat has dense hairs and hard skin, whereas long-coated dogs have hairs long and medium in range, straight slightly curvy. The gait is free, flawless with standing posture. Overall expression is quite alert, bold and clever.

The Saint Bernard breed is said to be the result of cross fertilization of old Tibetan Mastiff with some other breeds like Great Dane, Greater Swiss Mountain Dog and Great Pyrenees. The breed has its history as old as 980 AD, and was firstly discovered by St. Bernard de Menthon. The development of this breed is mainly headed with monastic. The most used breed is of short haired dog as the long haired dogs were prone to get dirt and mud and icicles. Firstly these dogs were used at lodging for travelers (especially one kept by a monastic order) through dangerous Alpine pass connecting Italy and Switzerland. The dog was extensively used in seventeenth century to rescue peoples caught in snow slides on the mountains as well as working and carting dog. They were high degree sensitive and were able to smell the scent of victim dozens of feet below of snow and would dig, lay with victim to warm his body, usually Saint Bernard dogs worked in packs and one of them used to inform about the victims to Hospice, enabling a rescue team to recover humans under the heavy snow. The dog had some unknown sense called sixth sense by predicting unsuitable weather conditions like snow storms and snow slides at major scales. This was possibly due to its high ear sensitivity enabling is detect minute sounds below audible frequencies for human. This effective breed was registered with AKC in 1885 and is used as search and rescue dog in snowy mountains, watchdogs, carting and guard cum travel guide in snow filled mountains.

Temperament

The breed is very effective in snowy areas and enjoys its fame as search and rescue detector. The history is filled with the adventures of rescuing 2000 humans trapped in the avalanches at Saint Bernard de Menthon Hospice. The working principal was searching in the form of packs for any trapped human.