St Bernard Foundation in Martigny celebrates its 20th birthday.
Keystone-SDA
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening: Swiss St Bernard foundation turns 20
The Fondation Barry du Grand-St-Bernard in Martigny, southwestern Switzerland, is celebrating its 20th anniversary on Tuesday. Since its establishment, almost 500 puppies have been born at the foundation's breeding station in the Lower Valais.
This content was published on
2 minutes
Keystone-SDA
Deutsch
de
Bernhardiner-Stiftung in Martigny VS feiert 20. Geburtstag
Original
Twenty years ago, the future of breeding the dogs of the Augustinian canons of the Great St Bernard Pass was uncertain. The canons announced that they wanted to part with their breeding programme. There were no longer enough of them to fulfil all their duties.
On January 28, 2005, a foundation was set up in Martigny to continue breeding the 300-year-old breed in place of the canons. Since then, the foundation has been the owner of the world’s oldest and most important breeding location of the famous Swiss dog.
During this time, 456 puppies from 69 litters have been born at the breeding station in Lower Valais, the Fondation Barry said in a press release. The initial five employees have now grown to 45. The St Bernard kennel has grown from 15 to over 30 dogs.
Theme park
The St Bernard became famous through its use as an avalanche dog by the canons. Barry is said to have saved the lives of over 40 people in the 19th century.
More
More
Barry the St Bernard: from farm dog to national hero
This content was published on
Why, 200 years after his death, is a stuffed Swiss dog still famous around the world? swissinfo.ch sniffs out the truth about Barry.
However, today’s breed no longer has much in common with this dog. St Bernards have become heavy and bulky. As avalanche dogs, they have been replaced by dogs of other breeds.
A new theme park with an area of 20,000 square metres is currently under construction in Martigny. The opening is planned for next summer. A total of CHF24 million ($26.5 million) has been budgeted for the construction costs.
More
More
Black drink saves from white death
This content was published on
From Wednesday the barrels round the necks of the Swiss Alpine Club’s 135 official mountain rescue dogs will be replaced by miniature Nespresso-style coffee machines. “It was a purely business decision,” said Jörg Ettinghadt from the Swiss Alpine Club. “The global financial crisis has meant we’ve got to either cut back the number of dogs…
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
Popular Stories
More
Life & Aging
Zurich: how the world capital of housing shortages is tackling the problem
Landslide threatened Swiss village of Brienz faces many more evacuations
This content was published on
The population of the Swiss village of Brienz/Brinzauls isn warned to expect more landslide evacuations in the coming years.
This content was published on
Swiss International Air Lines will avoid Pakistani airspace until further notice due to rising tension between India and Pakistan.
Swiss defence minister reaffirms military cooperation with neighbours
This content was published on
On his first trip abroad in government, Defence Minister Martin Pfister visited the Swiss troops taking part in a major exercise in Austria.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.