Man's Best Friend?

Richard di Franco, 36, was shaving before going to work in his Portland, Me., restaurant. Standing in the doorway, Ferdinand, his large three-year-old St. Bernard, looked on. Di Franco leaned down to pat the dog's head. Without warning, the animal leaped forward and Di Franco felt his face gripped between Ferdinand's powerful, crushing jaws as his pet tore a long gash in his right cheek that took scores of stitches to repair.

This from a St. Bernard? From the legendary canine hero, renowned for padding to alpine rescues with a keg of brandy around his neck? One might as well think of Florence Nightingale turning into a guerrilla. Ten years ago, such an incident would have been considered eccentric and tragic. Today the list multiplies: a four-year-old Indianapolis boy was mauled to death in January; a six-year-old Long Island boy met a similar fate in April; in July a three-year-old Bronx lad was mauled. The question now is: Has the breed degenerated?

"St. Bernards have been inbred to the point where excessive numbers of them have brain damage," claims Frank McMahon, chief field investigator for the Humane Society of the U.S. in Washington, D.C. The St. Bernard, like other breeds before it, has suffered the effects of popularity. Citing huge commercial "puppy mills" run by unscrupulous owners, McMahon says: "The minute a dog rises high on the American Kennel Club list, the inbreeding and overbreeding start viciously."

Others argue that irresponsible owners, not careless mating, are at the root of the problem. "Anyone who has a large-breed dog should be required to take it to obedience school," says Canine Psychologist Michael E. Fox of St. Louis' Washington University. "The younger dogs are the more trainable," he adds, and recommends "six to eight weeks old" as a good starting time.

It is not only St. Bernards that suffer the evils of inbreeding. Some German shepherds have hip dysplasia (a flattening of the joint), attributed to selective mating of dogs whose congenital hip dysfunction gives them a long, graceful sloping line, but makes walking progressively more difficult. Chihuahuas, bred for large, domelike skulls, are often born hydrocephalic, become snappy and irritable as excess fluid presses on the brain. Neurophysiologist Richard Redding of Alabama's Auburn University has performed lobotomies on 15 schizoid cocker spaniels whose unpredictable behavior oscillated between cuddly and violent.

Dramatic Increase. The shift in prestige from snooty miniatures to large dogs is a big factor in the current epidemic of biting. "Dogs are by far a more serious public health problem for this city than rats," says Deputy New York Health Commissioner Dr. Pasquale Imperato. With Dr. David Harris of Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital, Imperato has written a study of dog bites in New York City from 1965 to 1970. They report that more than 43% of the bites in the survey were by dogs weighing 50 lbs. or more. Confirming their findings, Urban Ecologist Alan Beck, also of Washington University, says that from 1963 to 1973, A.K.C. registrations of large-breed dogs increased dramatically (100% for German shepherds, 600% for Great Danes, 1,000% for St. Bernards).

In that same period the bite rate doubled. Beck estimates the number of dog bites in the U.S. each year at 1 million, the annual cost of managing the problem at $50 million. There are no federal, state or municipal laws regulating breeding, although there are many statutes on humane treatment. But odds are that canine affairs will now receive closer attention. Last April a poll by Nation's Cities magazine showed 60.6% of U.S. mayors reporting that animal problems lead the list of urban complaints--with traffic in second place and crime in a distant eighth.

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