Living Museum Pieces

The dogs of Great St. Bernard Hospice are no more.

In an age of heat sensors and helicopters, the dogs have became obsolete and the 12 pups are being raised to ensure the purity of their ancient pedigree.

"It's a shame," said Marie-Helene Sbai, as she and her boyfriend shook the rain off their coats in the museum's entrance. "It's the entire dog's heritage that no longer exists. It's clear that they weren't really rescuing people anymore."

St. Bernards, raised by the hospice's religious order since the 17th century, are credited with saving some 2,000 pilgrims traveling between Switzerland and Italy over the centuries.
    
A St. Bernard was last used in a search around 1975, said the friars. Upkeep of the gentle, slobbering beasts was expensive and time-consuming. So the dogs were sold.
    
In April, two foundations were created to care for the dogs and build a museum in their honor. The Barry of the Great Saint Bernard Foundation, which bought the dogs, was set up in January with $656,000 donated by Christine Cerletti, a singer in the northern Swiss city of Basel. It is named after a St. Bernard that lived in the monastery from 1800 to 1812 and helped save more than 40 people.
    
A second foundation created by former Geneva banker Bernard de Watteville and his wife, Caroline, is building a museum 22 miles away in Martigny, at the foot of the pass on the Swiss side where the dogs have spent winters for the five decades since their rescue duties began to dwindle.

This is really no different from the fate of many breeds whose jobs have become obsolete. Why a museum would be necessary for the "preservation" of the monestary's dogs is unclear, as none are required for the ex-wolf-hunting Borzoi or the Emperor-less Pekingese.

Unlike the traditional museum piece, however, dog breeds are "living history", and while breed type and temperament traits are sometimes modified to suit demands of the show ring and modern lifestyles (as in the stabilzation of temperaments in the once "sharp" Doberman Pinscher), most breeds still bear strong resemblance, as well as uncorrupted genetic pedigrees that trace back to the times of their working ancestors.

It's one of the reasons serious breeders in all species pay such close attention to what seem to the untrained eye to be minor "beauty" points. The small details of breed type, like set of ear and shape of eye, colour details, coat texture - are often important indicators that the genetic history of these animals has been preserved intact for another generation.

Posted by Kate at September 17, 2005 10:18 AM