The history of St. Bernard dogs

Around 1050 AD, Saint Bernard of Montjou founded a monastery high in the Swiss Alps, with the Saint Bernard Pass in the valley below. The pass was a popular route for travelers and pilgrims as well as many traders. These traders were the first to bring dogs to the Saint Bernard Monastery until 1125. For the next four hundred years the pass was largely abandoned and few travelers passed the monastery. No new dogs entered the Saint Bernard Monastery, and it was during this time that the Saint Bernard breed arose.

C. Keller, a scientist, first bred the Saint Bernard from the Roman “Molossian” dog. The Molossian is said to have came from the Tibetan Mastiff. The first Saint Bernards were kept at the monastery as guard dogs. The first written account of a Saint Bernard, however, was not made until 1703 by Prior Balalu. In his writing, he spoke of the cook inventing an exercise wheel for the dog to run on, which in turn would turn the cooking spit. The Saint Bernard Pass had become popular again by then, and the dogs helped feed the 20,000 travelers that passed through each year. There are other mentioning of the Saint Bernards in later passages, including that a dog was lost in a blizzard and a bill for the repair of a dog collar.