5. Saint Bernards Traced Their Roots Back to Giant Roman Mastiffs
Monks of the Alpine monastery founded by Saint Bernard of Menthon began training large farm dogs for rescue work in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The big canines were descended from mastiff-type Molossian hounds, that had been introduced to the region by the Romans. Those dogs were strong, had weather-resistant coats, and possessed an exceptionally good sense of smell. That made them well-suited to guide and rescue travelers. The dogs were accompanied by monks, who sometimes carried flasks of brandy and shared them with travelers.
That might have started the association between Saint Bernard Pass rescues and brandy. It eventually grew into the false notion that it was the dogs themselves, not the monks, that carried kegs of brandy. Over a period of hundreds of years, from the sixteenth or seventeenth century to the early nineteenth, the monks of the Great Saint Bernard Hospice bred an excellent search and rescue dog. However, severe winters from 1816 to 1818 saw an unusually high number of avalanches that killed many of the breeding dogs during rescue operations.