A lot of people I come in contact with don’t know that Saints come in two different coats. If we bring Luci out in public, we get questioned about her breed. So I’m going to explain the pros and cons to the two different coats.
Shorthair (Smooth)
Directly from the Saint Bernard Standard: Very dense, short-haired (stockhaarig), lying smooth, tough, without however feeling rough to the touch. The thighs are slightly bushy. The tail at the root has longer and denser hair which gradually becomes shorter toward the tip. The tail appears bushy, not forming a flag.
Please don’t get fooled into thinking that the shorthair (sh) Saints don’t shed, because they do! Their undercoats come out a couple times a year, usually in the spring and the fall. These Saints always look “cleaner” and amazingly enough, dirt rolls right off them usually. We call them the “wash and wear” Saints, especially when it comes time to show them in the ring. Minimal grooming to do. I find that the hair from sh’s are more “coarse” than that of the longhairs. What I mean is that their hair will stick in the couch rather than lay on top of it. From experience only, sh’s drool less, don’t ask me why, but that’s what we have found to be true.
Longhair (Rough)
Directly from the Saint Bernard Standard: The longhaired type completely resembles the shorthaired type except for the coat which is not shorthaired (stockhaarig) but of medium length plain to slightly wavy, never rolled or curly and not shaggy either. Usually, on the back, especially from the region of the haunches to the rump, the hair is more wavy, a condition, by the way, that is slightly indicated in the shorthaired dogs. The tail is bushy with dense hair of moderate length. Rolled or curly hair, or a flag tail, is faulty. Face and ears are covered with short and soft hair; longer hair at the base of the ear is permissible. Forelegs only slightly feathered; thighs very bushy.
Can you say “high maintenance mama”? Three times sloooowwww? This is the dog you can brush and groom forever and still have more work to do! Longhairs (lh) shed, and shed and shed. Did I mention the shedding? They “blow” their coats twice a year and it’s not pretty. LH’s will look like they have lost 30 pounds. And sometimes the shedding is done over a course of a month unless you (yes, you the owner!) help it along with a blower or manual stripping. They need trimming and a vast array of grooming products if you so choose. The coats can run from straight, silky smooth with long hairs, to shorter, heavy coats that lay flatter. That’s determined by their lineage, if they are out of two roughs, or a combo. That would be a genetics post, which I would let my husband write, I ain’t no genetic expert! They tend to drool a lot more than the sh’s, which makes it more messy, well, because they have a lot more hair to contend with! They are the producers of the “hair tumbleweeds” in the house. I swear I have a meeting ground for these under my kitchen table. These are the dogs that most people have come to love from the movies.
When anyone asks me whether I have a preference, I say “Shorthair“. But that’s just ME because I am allergic (that will be a whole different post) to dogs and a dog that drools less (allergens are in the saliva) is one I can cope with better. As for which one makes a great house dog, that is up to the tolerance of the one living with it. I won’t lie when I say that I’m glad Sinatra is out in the kennel. He’s a great dog in the house, but his nickname is “drooly bastard” for a reason and I have scrubbed way too much drool off my walls because of him!
To get a visual of the coat differences, go to my website at http://www.brogansaints.com/. Click on males, Sinatra is a lh with a longer silky coat. Click on bitches and look at Polly. She is a lh, too, but her coat is thicker and flatter. Luci is our only sh Saint. Patsy is a lh with a very (incorrect) wavy coat.
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